The Race for Privilege in Blackness: Transformative Leadership in Traversing Space in Search of Black Queer Cool Tiffany Wilkins

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THE RACE FOR PRIVILEGE IN BLACKNESS: TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP

TRAVERSING SPACE IN SEARCH OF BLACK QUEER COOL

A Dissertation

Submitted to the School of Education

Duquesne University

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for

the Degree of Doctor of Education

Tiffany D. Wilkins

Please Do Not Cite or Reproduce without Permission of the Author

December 2014

Tiffany D. Wilkins

2014

DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION PROFESSIONAL DOCTORATE IN EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP PROGRAM

Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

Presented by: Tiffany Denise Wilkins B.A., English, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 1994 M.A., Teaching of English, Teachers College Columbia University, NY, 1997

July 17, 2014

THE RACE FOR PRIVILEGE IN BLACKNESS: TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP IN TRAVERSING SPACE IN SEARCH OF BLACK QUEER COOL

______, Chair Gretchen Givens Generett, Ph.D. Associate Professor/Associate Dean, Department of Educational Foundations & Leadership and Director, UCEA Center for Educational Leadership & Social Justice Duquesne University

______, Member Rick R. McCown, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Educational Foundations & Leadership and Director, Professional Doctorate in Educational Leadership Program Duquesne University

______, Member Mary Beth Gasman, Ph.D. Professor, Higher Education Division/Director, Center for the Study of Minority Serving Institutions University of Pennsylvania

______, External Reader Timothy L. Smith, Sr. Pastor, Keystone Church of Hazelwood Founder/CEO, Center of Life Community Empowerment

iii

Program Director Rick R. McCown, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Educational Foundations Leadership and Director, Professional Doctorate in Educational Leadership Program Duquesne University School of Education

ABSTRACT

THE RACE FOR PRIVILEGE IN BLACKNESS: TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP

IN TRAVERSING SPACE IN SEARCH OF BLACK QUEER COOL

Tiffany D. Wilkins

December 2014

Dissertation Supervised by Dr. Gretchen Generett

This portraiture project, incorporating auto-ethnographic elements, investigating how African American educational systems became systems of oppression faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) 1youth of color, intentionally blends artist in creative glance with researcher in systemic inquiry and knowledge gathering (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Hoffman-Davis, 1997; Ellis et al., 2011).

An aspiring African American, 2gender non-conforming, lesbian leader is an auto- ethnographic portraiture exemplar: a counter-narrative of transcending obstacles

1 Though the phrase “youth of color” is often used to cover the wide range of non-European/Caucasian racial and ethnic backgrounds, for the purposes of this project the phrase is used specifically to refer to African American (Black) kids, youth and students.

2 Dixon, Jindasurat, and Tobar (2012) refer to a gender non-conforming person as one whose gender expression is different from the societal expectations based on their assigned sex at birth. This term can refer to a person’s gender identity or gender role and refers to someone who falls outside or transcends what is considered to be traditional gender norms for their assigned sex. Hate Violence Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and HIV- affected Communities In the United States in 2011. New

overshadowing accessing college, graduate school, career success in education; doctoral ambitions with audacity within classes of pervasive racism, heterosexism and homophobia. Parallel instances of critical confrontations in predominantly Black secondary schools and historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) exposed

LGBTQ youth of color consequently unprepared and obstructed from college access.

Parallel instances of critical confrontations in predominantly Black secondary schools and historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) exposed LGBTQ youth of color consequently unprepared and obstructed from college access.

My story, a “text of diverse interdisciplinary praxes,” (Spry, 2001, p.710), sketched themes, recreated images with words, interpreted meaning behind observations and insights to understand college access lacking for LGBTQ youth of color providing privileges I currently enjoy; and looked at systemic examples of change. I narrated, collected and traced my reality of events; examined an interview; interpretations; behaviors; words from schooling experiences, attempting “meaning-making” (Lyle,

2009), studying converging themes and relationships. Additionally, the data refuted speculations and confirmed misperceptions. These complimentary approaches synthesized LGBTQ youth of color outcomes.

Resulting insights included the value of scholarly inquiry into “lived experience” reflecting others’ realities, guiding future engagement; key leadership role and identity discovery, and challenging recognition of personal positionality and privilege. Essential images and concepts illuminated shared experiences of battling a “degenerating sense of nobodiness” (King, n.d.) in multiple constructions of exclusion, isolation, oppression;

York: Report from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. Retrieved from http://www.avp.org/storage/documents/Reports/2012_NCAVP_2011_HV_Report.pdf April 1, 2014.

ongoing transformation in the “Process of Becoming” (Lyle, 2009). Methodological systemic inquiry into epistemology, insight behind constructs, designed this auto- ethnographic portraiture; evoking reflection, redefining agency. Seeing beauty and finding “cool” in Black queer me, despite internalizing prevalent images and observations of White and Black folks alike expressing otherwise, is the struggle. The final stage of interconnectedness pushes against normative blackness situated in deviant resistance. My leadership identity, mobilized to act, teach and model for others, emerged.

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DEDICATION

This dissertation is dedicated to my late mother Alice Louise Wilkins

aka “Ms. Alice” the writer of the family.

In 2010, her homecoming began this journey for her, because of her.

When I came out to you, queer, gender non-conforming, androgynous and all, you loved

me, were always proud of me, and proud to be my Mom.

Thank you, Ma, for being the origin of my “cool” the beginning of my story.

Now I can finish yours.

Tamara, my dearest friend and family.

For 18 years of unconditional love and support that got me here and saw me through.

You always believed even when I struggled to.

Your friendship and love was what I wished for as a little girl reading Frog and Toad

stories

To the Oglesby family and our matriarch, my Grandmother, the late Geneva Oglesby.

For breathing history into my blackness.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I acknowledge Dr. Gretchen Generett for her unwavering confidence in my ability to write, teach, research and lead. Each year she challenged me with the question, “What

kind of leader do you want to be?” Her guidance and faith was the model for my

answer.

Dr. Rick McCown, the second best man I know next to my stepdad; for his shoulder

to cry on, his “kid tie”, his undivided and often time sensitive (vivid pictures of this

hero running through the airport with suitcase and coat in hand to catch flights to

present ProDEL while texting/emailing instructions, answers, suggestions to me)

attention and guidance in listening to my story, teaching me how to write it as

portraiture, and why I needed to share it. His kindness is how I believe that every person I met and engaged in Pittsburgh is inherently good even when they continued

to demonstrate otherwise.

I would not have completed this program without these two amazing individuals, my

scholarly lifelines and literal “foot in my tail”.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page Abstract ...... v

Dedication ...... viii

Acknowledgement ...... ix

List of Figures ...... xiii

List of Tables ...... xiv

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Background ...... 3

Statement of Problem ...... 6

Purpose of Study and Research Questions ...... 9

Significance of Study ...... 10

CHAPTER II: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND LITERATURE REVIEW

INTRODUCTION ...... 12

Blackness ...... 13

Blackness as a Construct (Modern & Past) ...... 15

Education in Blackness: Parallel Lessons of Survival in a Construct ...... 17

CHAPTER III: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND LITERATURE REVIEW

INTRODUCTION ...... 23

Damage of Root Shock in African American Cultural Institutions ...... 23

A Future in Root Shock ...... 34

Derrick Bell: Profound Knowledge of Critical Race Theory & Interest Convergence in Black Education Systems ...... 41

African American Educational Leadership ...... 44

African American Leadership and Institutional Critical Spirituality in the Black Church ...... 49

African American Educational Leadership Updated and Accepting ...... 51 the Challenge

African American Cultural Institutions ...... 55

Institutional Intersectionality ...... 57

The Institution of the Black Family: To Be or Not to Be ...... 58

CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS & LITERATURE REVIEW

INTRODUCTION ...... 62

Deviant Resistance and Autonomy as a Means of Survival ...... 62

African American Educational Networks ...... 66

Nomads: Severed Roots Unclaimed ...... 67

Deciphering the Code of NEW Knowledge ...... 76

Introducing: Black Queer Studies ...... 84

CHAPTER V: TRANSFORMATIVE BLACKNESS & LEADERSHIP IN TRAVERSING SPACE IN SEARCH OF BLACK QUEER COOL

INTRODUCTION ...... 88

The Lived Experience of an Unexpected Case Study ...... 88

LIMITATIONS ...... 89

OBSERVATIONS

Race + Class ...... 90

Race + Culture ...... 95

Race + Sexuality + Gender Identity & Presentation ...... 98

Race + Class + Culture + Sexuality + Gender Identity & Presentation...... 103

Race + Culture + Class + Sexuality + Gender Identity & Presentation = I Have Landed Take Me to Your Leader ...... 108

Employment in Pittsburgh, PA: Rite Aid Pharmacy ...... 111

INSIGHTS

Intersectional Overlap: The Most Livable City? For Who? ...... 114

Identity Explosion: “Dr. Wilkins” and Mr./Ms. Queer ...... 118

DISCUSSION

The Need for Exploration & Discovery ...... 124

Unique Identity Development Becomes Unexpected Case Study ...... 124

PERCEPTIONS

Sistah Unhinged ...... 125

Queer & Brown in Steeltown ...... 126

Transformative Blackness with Black Queer Studies: Designs for Action & Improvement Research Plans ...... 129

I. Improved African American Leadership in an Ethic of Risk ...... 129

II. Improved Cultural Institutions ...... 131

III. Improved Networks – Networked Improvement Communities...... 135

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LIST OF FIGURES

Page

Figure 2.1: African American Educational Systems Formed and Informed by and Within the Construct of Blackness ...... 18

Figure 3.1: Household Incomes of Respondents ...... 24

Figure 3.2: K-12 Overall Abuse by Teachers/Staff ...... 29

Figure 3.3: How often faculty Intervene when hearing homophobic remarks . . . . . 30

Figure 3.4: Age of Survivors and Victims ...... 31

Figure 3.5: Grade Point Average (GPA) (reported by LGBT Youth of Color) . . . . . 32

Figure 3.6: Aspire to Attend College (reported by LGBT Youth of Color) ...... 32

Figure 3.7: Dropped Out Because Of Harassment ...... 33 (reported by transgender adults)

Figure 3.8 Theoretical Framework lived experience of intersectional oppression . . . 60 Figure 5.1: Cultural Construct of Blackness: Leadership, Networks of Power & Cultural Institutions ...... 101

xiii

LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 2.1: The Most Collectivistic States and the Most Individualistic States ...... 46

Table 4.1: Hits returned on OPAC searches on keyword “Homosexuality” along with library’s reported holdings from 2000 IPEDS ...... 80

Table 5.1: The Whitest Cities ...... 166

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CHAPTER I: Introduction

The objective of my work was to begin the investigation into what has generally received little scholarly attention until now: college access for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth of color.

I grew up in the richness of African American culture. I worshipped and laid my mother to rest in the love and celebration of a Black church, and lived in predominantly

African American communities. I attended largely African American schools and went on to later teach a majority of African American and Latino students. I benefitted from and was strengthened by lessons of what it meant to be a Black girl and now woman in the United States. As an African American gender non-conforming lesbian educator pursuing a doctoral degree, I witness the experiences of LGBTQ youth of color, specifically their academic promise yet poor achievement, and I struggle with what I know to be an important part of my identity that also reviles and attempts to erase another part of me.

In formal and informal educational settings that are predominantly African

American, there is history, culture, pride, and reinforcement of the capacity to achieve in the face of pervasive racism. There is also an educational capital that I maintain is being withheld from Black students because of their sexual orientation, gender presentation and identification. Research (Eccles, Wong & Peck, 2006) demonstrates that African

American young people are best motivated in a predominantly Black setting that protects and encourages academic achievement in Black students. African American educational leaders who grew up during times and in systems that attempted to prevent their success understand the values of these settings. Their experiences inform their understanding of

the importance of education in providing a voice and access. It is also part of what brought them to their work. Yet simultaneously there are predominantly African

American educational settings and leaders consciously and unconsciously refusing

LGBTQ youth of color the same opportunities they enjoyed.

Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are faced with millions in cuts to Title III Part B funding (Scruggs, 2013). Opposition to HBCUs argue that these institutions are obsolete in a post-racial United States presidency (Gasman & Hilton,

2012). Moreover, ongoing debates about the need for culturally responsive curriculum

(Perry, 2013) taught by an increased African American male teacher force (Kunjufu,

2011), presents the significance of African American educational settings and educators whose work, upon which the success of millions of Black students is due, is more important now than ever. My agenda is to inform of the barriers to academic achievement and college access presented in predominantly Black secondary schools and historically

Black colleges and universities.

This project is not meant to be a criticism of all things African American. On the contrary, it is a method of inquiry into the many manifestations of what it is to be Black

(referred to as “blackness” in this dissertation) in African American educational systems.

It also focuses on engaging predominantly Black secondary schools, HBCUs and the

African American community in collectively changing how “blackness” both helps and hinders LGBTQ youth of color in attaining their educational goals. Through multiple lenses intended to engage the multiple audiences of schools, academe, and the community, this research explores a sense of “otherness” in an education system not solely in larger society but specifically in spaces and educational settings historically

serving the needs of African Americans. In an improvement science approach to these systems, I examine Black educational leadership, cultural institutions and networks as three organized, managed and monitored systems within the African American cultural construct of “blackness” that perpetuates poor academic performance and presents barriers to higher education for LGBTQ youth of color.

Background

“Silence Equals Death” (SFGate.com, 2004), a powerful slogan in activism for

HIV/AIDS research in the 1980’s, fittingly opens this research. People of color suffer the highest rates of infection and related death from HIV/AIDS. Disproportionately affected,

African Americans have the fastest growing rate of infection followed by Latinos (Henry

J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 2007). Likewise, LGBTQ youth of color are disproportionately more likely to not finish high school and not go onto college. While a wealth of research and data has begun to begin to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic in communities of color nationwide, there is a substantial deficiency of empirical data and research on higher education preparation and schooling of LGBTQ youth of color, illustrating the severity of this issue in comparison to any other group of young people.

In predominantly Black secondary schools and later historically Black colleges and universities, LGBTQ students of color are not sufficiently prepared to apply, attend and graduate from college while in high school. Research reveals inequity in college preparation for students of color in general, an ongoing struggle for not only access but also empowerment (Darling-Hammond, 2010). Deficient competitive course work, test preparation, and financial aid, difficulty with navigating college applications, and inadequate teacher encouragement reinforce the myth that college is largely not a goal for

many students of color (Darling-Hammond, 2010). Yet the added hegemony surrounding sexual orientation, gender identification and presentation augments the achievement gap, increasing inequality where ostensibly neither has begun to be addressed. Furthermore, the added barriers of race and class make LGBTQ youth of color disproportionately more prone to longitudinal adverse effects of the achievement gap.

Simultaneously suffering daily overwhelming violence, sexual harassment and bullying from students as well as faculty, students must fight to first obtain a high school diploma or GED in pursuit of a college degree. To a kid experiencing much of this before

15, college can seem unattainable. Such students feel as though nobody cares to educate, advocate, or protect them (Ngo, 2003 as cited by Blackburn & McCready, 2009). Those who remain in school usually experience a drop in academic performance (Jordan, 1997 et al., as cited by Lugg, 2003; Dunn & Moodie-Mills, 2012). The disparities are most often subsequent to psychiatric (often disciplinary from trauma) and physical treatment of

LGBTQ youth of color (Advocates for Youth, 2007). As a result, survival becomes the bigger priority. Young people suspended from school or facing expulsion for fighting off attacks of peers, eventually stop going to school. Additionally, feeling as though they fit nowhere else, these kids and young people often turn to the streets (Dunn & Moodie-

Mills, 2012; Dixon, Jindasurat & Tobar, 2012).

As I will later discuss, leaving school to work and hang out in the streets, LGBTQ youth of color are particularly vulnerable to other dangerous behavior where they experience other forms of violence leading to early introductions to the criminal justice system. Dunn and Moodie-Mills (2012) maintain that “. . . [Less] than half of gay and transgender students of color told a teacher or administrator about the harassment they

faced because they worried that either nothing would be done or the situation would get worse,” (p.2). Unfortunately, the regular occurrence of “sexual violence [and] physical violence,” (Dixon, Jindasurat & Tobar, 2012, p.30) in addition to verbal and physical harassment in school, not only entails the decision of what’s worth reporting at the risk of retaliation, but also the value of education over physical and emotional safety. The detailed nature of reporting harassment and abuse in schools as well as experiences of violent crime is a dilemma of disclosure due to the disregard and resulting disconnection from those who are supposed to serve, protect and care for students in their charge (Singh

& McKleroy, 2011). Alarmingly, predominantly Black secondary schools and HBCUs, as a result, are set to become “school-to-prison pipelines” (American Civil Liberties Unions,

2013) continuing to fall short of the priority of supporting LGBTQ youth of color.

Additionally, LGBTQ youth of color go on to struggle as adults because of what they were denied as children and students in school. Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Director of Education and Community Engagement for Welcoming Schools Kisha Webster, states that there is a pattern of growing groups of young African American LGBT identified, masculine (of center) women who are leaving school, and graduating into violent offenses and incarceration (Webster, 2014). “50 Years After the Dream,” (Faruqee, 2013) predicts that youth of color end up in the criminal justice system when schools fail to support them. For LGBTQ youth of color, the failure of predominantly Black secondary schools and HBCUs to support them academically is in the default on promised intellectual empowerment, cultural sanctuary, and in the refusal to acknowledge and protect them in schools.

Just Detention International (JDI) (2009), confirms that once these young women arrive at corrections facilities, they are often physically and sexually assaulted by both prison officials and inmates while serving their prison sentences. “57% percent of survivors . . . [are] sexually abused more than once, and 30% of all prisoner rape survivors [enduring] six or more assaults,” (Just Detention International, 2009, p.1).

Transgender young women are particularly vulnerable. Despite clear female physical features or any evidence of their gender identity, these young women are mixed with male inmates to serve their terms, and protection, if any, is usually solitary confinement for the duration of their sentences (Just Detention International, 2009). In 2009, JDI research documented that 67% of LGBT identified inmates, at six California men’s prisons, reported having been raped by another inmate during their incarceration, a rate

15 times the overall prison population (2009). Further, JDI data has detailed cases of victims who survived physical assault and torture while in prison only to discover contraction of HIV due to the assault, and those victims who later died of AIDS (2009).

Statement of Problem

While the isolation of LGBTQ white teens has become increasingly acknowledged in society, the same has not been true for African American teens, specifically in spaces and educational settings historically serving the educational needs of African Americans. Little information has resulted in too little discussion of LGBTQ youth of color in African American educational settings, leaving any topic surrounding them menacing and forbidden, subsequently creating a workforce of pre-service teachers, teacher professionals, administrators and practitioners at a loss for how to help.

As schools and researchers inquire into creating and implementing bullying, school safety and leadership development programs for youth (Johnson, Gonzalez &

Singh, 2014), the same focus remains minimal regarding cultural competency in the

African American education workforce of pre-service teachers, teacher professionals, administrators and practitioners. This negatively affects the general understanding of the

Black LGBTQ experience not only in HBCUs but also predominantly Black secondary schools. 50% of African American teachers with bachelor’s degrees are HBCUs graduates (National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, 2008).

Furthermore, research and discussion of Black teachers’ experiences and characteristics, specifically sought out for public school improvement of “academic, cultural, and social experiences of all students but particularly African American students,” (p.95) is unquestionably valuable (Milner, 2006). But “inherent, unstated, lessons that emerge in classroom interactions that show up between [Black] teachers and [Black] students,”

(p.98) regarding Black LGBTQ students and youth experiences are unaddressed.

Of the 73 documented studies and reports from 1995 to 2010 on experiences of

LGBTQ youth of color (Barney, 2004; Warren, et al., 2008; Mobley, 2010), disparities as an underserved population in dominant society as compared to their White counterparts are most often the focus of study (Bridges, 2007). “A racial equity lens ‘brings into focus the ways in which race and ethnicity shape experiences with power, access to opportunity, treatment, and outcomes, both today and historically,” (Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues, 2008, p.4). Schrag (2010) notes a new “Mississipication” (re- segregation) of schools largely attended by students of color in lower income communities. These schools have the least amount of funds invested, higher rates of

newly hired unprepared teachers, and are “less likely to have programs specifically aimed at queer youth,” (Blackburn & McCready, 2009, p.228) or professional development and training in which to learn about them.

The shape of African American systems of education for LGBTQ students of color is not only systemic but also selective in its leadership, institutions and networks of power. Governance, policy enactment and enforcement of agency is watered down or withheld entirely in schools, colleges, universities and churches (Oguntoyinbo, 2009;

Myers, 2010; Pichon et al., 2012; Moodie-Mill, 2011; Gasman, 2008; Malen & Knapp,

1997; Hallett, 2010). Harper and Gasman (2008) suggest that, “Because [African

American] campus environments had been constructed to disregard the presences of

LGBT students, their heterosexual peers behaved accordingly,” (p.346). Thus these institutions cannot effectively help LGBTQ youth of color to prepare for and access college. Furthermore, if at the college level there is little to no initiation and seemingly no need for surrounding substantive education for LGBTQ students of color, then secondary schools have neither precedent nor motivation to do the same.

I argue that there are systems of oppression governed by and within “blackness,” affecting the longitudinal educational access, goals and outcome effects of LGBTQ youth of color. These systems of oppression include African American educational leaders, informal and formal Black educational settings and the African American limitations on who should be granted access to education. While safe space creation is a critical element in the academic success of LGBTQ youth of color, there continues to be a serious deficiency of research on the essential daily “reality” of African American educational systems organized, managed and monitored by blackness.

African American educational systems as a whole, tainted by heterosexism and homophobia, are corrupt, and therefore improvement must be system wide. Research is needed to investigate teachers, curriculum, and student engagement on campus and in classroom environments of predominantly Black secondary schools and historically black colleges and universities. Furthermore, the effects on learning outcomes for LGBTQ youth of color, not consistent with findings of Black student achievement in predominantly African American educational settings, need to be uncovered.

Purpose and Research Questions

This work examines the role of African American educational systems in the educational experiences, poor academic performance and higher education access of

LGBTQ youth of color in predominantly Black secondary schools and historically black colleges and universities. Structured power relations between gay and transgender youth of color and dominant society of state “regulatory agencies” (Cohen, 2004, p.29) are designed to “control and organize human behavior…through organizational protocol that hides the effects of racism and [homophobia],” in institutionally disciplinary domains

(Collins, 2000, p.8). However, a politics of respectability lending itself to humanity during the Civil Rights Movement is suspect in homophobia and heterosexism similarly damaging in stereotypes perpetuated in settings and spaces situated to be safer, comprehensively culturally relevant and more responsive (Cohen, 2004). Consequently, marginalization and disenfranchisement of LGBTQ youth of color is the result of negotiating culturally traditional and historic systems of oppression. Additionally, this experience in Black secondary schools and HBCUs causes their poor academic performance, attrition, and creates barriers to college and completion of a degree.

Framing my experience as an African American identified gender non-conforming lesbian as a critical case study told in portraiture, I investigate the parallel experiences of

LGBTQ young people. The specific objectives of this project are as follows:

 To explore how blackness shapes and controls:

1. who Black educational leaders are and how they are defined

2. formal and informal spaces where Black people historically and traditionally learn

3. how Black people come to understand what blackness is; how that understanding determines educational access or exclusion

Logic models also present generalized theory about the effects of blackness on

African American educational systems and the longitudinal educational access and outcome effects of LGBTQ youth of color in predominantly Black secondary schools and

HBCUs. These models inform my improvement designs for pre-service and teacher professionals, administrators and practitioners in the context of predominantly and historically Black educational settings that can effective meet the needs of LGBTQ youth of color. With special attention to a root cause analysis of African American educational systems, I argue that blackness organizes, manages and monitors African American educational leaders, informal and formal Black educational settings and the African

American understanding of who should be granted access to an education.

Significance of Study

Investigating how African American educational systems affect educational access, goals and outcomes for LGBTQ youth of color in predominantly Black secondary schools and HBCUs will not only increase understanding of what these young people experience, but also dispel common misconceptions that Black LGBT life experiences

mirrors whites’. The culture, values, traditions and general discomfort of the Black community with this subject matter presents a difficulty in understanding. Thus Black educators may best achieve deeper insight into unconventional students through interaction with a shared experience, learning and discussion that encourages Black education professionals and practitioners to enter into an "emergent process and experience” (Rambo, 2005; Ronai, 1992; as cited by Ellis et. al). This process serves as a rehabilitative tool in scaffolding the unlearning of stereotypes, biases and fear (Sauer,

2012). The process could also facilitate deeper inquiry into distinctive culturally relevant and design specific curriculum development and training for pre-service teachers and teacher professionals, administrators and practitioners currently in need but lacking at predominately Black secondary schools and HBCUs (Moodie-Mill, 2011; Hildreth,

2012).

CHAPTER II: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction

In 2011, I was accepted into the Professional Doctorate in Educational Leadership

(ProDEL) at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA. Anticipating a learning experience culminating 16 years of teaching and program management, I left Brooklyn, NY and relocated to Pittsburgh, PA. This decision and the challenges I confronted would call into question everything I’d learned as an educator, illuminate my unexpected transformation into leadership, and become my dissertation project.

Throughout my educational journey in Pittsburgh I struggled to understand how a leader builds community with those who may or may not be responsible for marginalizing her, and with a leader who may/may not be responsible for marginalizing the community as well. Key themes surrounding transformative improvement of systems

(Langley et al., 2009), the manifestations of “blackness,” relational power and privilege; and the effects on LGBTQ youth of color emerged. As an auto-ethnographic portraiture study (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Hoffman-Davis, 1997), my findings facilitated my interest in a counter-narrative of Black educational leadership through deviance (Cohen, 2004), enabling the recovery and expansion of LGBTQ youth of color academic achievement and college access as a counter construct of blackness in 3Black queer studies (Cohen,

2004).

In this process of investigating African American educational systems, I also unconsciously discovered that during my three years in Pittsburgh, I had experienced

3Black Queer Studies [Theory], is analysis and theorization of the intersectional queer experiences, identities and peoples of the African Diaspora unaddressed in Queer Theory centering on binaries of sexuality and gender (Cohen, 1997); McBride and Brody (2000) further describe inquiry into “certain kinds of heteronormativity and hypermasculinity within the ‘body’ of black subjects,” (p.288) non-normatively expressed, removed, erased.

much of what I contend that LGBTQ youth of color go through in negotiating these systems: the recurring shock of loss of a community I’d grown up in for much of my life

(Fullilove, 2004), amplified by the death of my mother; isolation and exclusion. From this understanding, I arrived in Pittsburgh with my own preconceived notions of power and privilege that demanded inquiry, reflection and improvement to become a leader. I relocated, resisted, failed, survived, researched, and now write to argue claims for transformative improvement, myself transformed.

BLACKNESS

Blackness is how the African diaspora takes shape in action, passion, sensation and “Freestyle” (Bird, 2002). Culturally, in part, it is music and fashion as art and expression in Malick Sidibe’s original hipsters and the “Yeye” from 1960’s Mali

(Olopade, 2012). From “YeYe” to “B-Bop” to B-Girls and B-boys in “Woo” (Badu,

2003, track 5). Adidas sweat suits with new “kicks”; Glam “gettin’ down”, zoot suits

Superfly (Mayfield, 1972) soul trains. Blackness is “ours. It belongs to us,” (Davis, 2012, p.62) in re-creation of screaming Molotov cocktail texture in the art of Jean-Michel

Basquiat; and delicate delirium Kara Walker style. It is afro halos of spiritual transcendence “defying gravity and limitations . . . you can’t fuck it up,” (p.62).

Blackness is the yellow dress my grandmother made and sent for me to wear Easter

Sunday when I was a little girl, and the blue prom gown, “my first young lady’s dress” I tried on for my mother at the mall, but never got the chance to wear returned the day before the event.

Essentially, blackness is infinite, vast and multiplex, encompassing so much of the past, present and future of a culture of people that discussions of what it is exactly go

beyond descriptions and definitions of how to be, feel, think and do BLACK. Melissa

Harris-Perry’s explanation of blackness is salient: “That dominant discourse does present pretty limited possibilities [because] in Black peoples’ actual lives, in their families, in their churches, in their neighborhoods, they actually do know a lot different kinds of

Black people,” (as cited by Touré, 2011, p.7). Perry in fact recognizes “variation” in blackness that others would deny (Touré, 2011). However, even in Perry’s observation of the infinite possibilities of blackness there still remains the firm grasp to a binary “of what it means to be a Black man or a Black woman,” (p.7); one way of being and its single alternative polar opposite. Where does “the other” (those for whom neither label, man nor woman, exclusively represents who they are, and those who recognize sex, gender, and sexuality as more fluidly functioning) fit? This is not to say that Perry alone bears the burden of dictating what blackness is, however it is indicative of a construct that dictates the existence of nothing but male and female subscriptions difficult to relinquish.

In scholarship, there is a call for improved discourse. Lewis (2013), Kumashiro

(2001) and Wright (2013) are among those making such pleas. They discuss the negative implications of defining blackness as only “anti-racist,” limiting global awareness in discourse [that] defines ‘Black racial victimhood’ in terms of experiences of [only] Black men, thus reinforcing the patriarchy and heterosexism that permeates Black American communities,” (Kumashiro, 2001; Carbado, 1999b as cited by Kumashiro, 2001, p.12). In

“Exhuming the Ratchet Before It’s Buried,” Lewis (2013) likewise acknowledges “every controlling image of black women,” (Lewis, 2013, para.2), battling the duality of who she is, perceives herself to be, what dominant society sees and rigidly believes is the way she is supposed to exist. Black women may be either, “[a] combination of Mammy, Sapphire,

Jezebel, and the Welfare Queen,” (para.2), or a published Assistant Professor of Feminist

& Gender Studies. Despite prevalent actions and beliefs, Black women are complex and multifaceted, and Black culture, inclusive of its LGBTQ communities, is multicultural; to deny this creates “symbolic polarities dividing social and metaphysical reality into such antithetical categories as the just and unjust, the pure and the polluted, the sacred and the profane,” (Emirbayer & Goodwin, 1996, p.366). An attempt to advance and promote a single representation of Black women or blackness invariably sets off and exaggerates its polar opposite in objection to affirm that others exist (1996). Recognition of all in the revolution for African American educational equity serves all.

As a construct, blackness creates binary boundaries where none should exist

(McBride, 2005; Lewis, 2013; Kennedy, 2011). Blackness interprets Black sexuality as singularly heterosexual with the symbolic power to rewrite African American cultural histories using Black semiotic resources to disrupt the possibility of there ever having been an alternative narrative (Jewitt & Oyama, 2004). Because LGBTQ youth of color defy the cultural norms of blackness, the result is the exclusion of their existence in historically Black education; the normative understanding of blackness must be resisted.

BLACKNESS as a Construct (Modern & Past)

As a culturally divisive construct, “blackness” perceives a threat to the respectability of the Black community with the acknowledgement of its LGBT people.

Legally excluded from American public education, African Americans educated themselves, initiating a 71% literacy increase from the pews of the 4Black church to train

4 Reference to “the Black church” speaks to an icon representative of all Black churches collectively; not only in recognition of the multiple denominations of Black churches in existence but also in non-specific generality.

and transform freed slaves into a new generation of church leaders and teachers

(Mitchell, 2010). Carefully (re)constructed and maintained, today the identity politics of respectability is embodied in counter-narratives of the values and successes of struggle against educational inequity and racism (McBride, 2005).

In this context, blackness has gone on to shape both its culture and how it educates its people, cultivated into systems of Black educational leadership, networks and cultural institutions. Notable African American educators and scholars argue that counter-narratives in predominantly Black high schools are reinforcements against recurring stories and images of the anticipation of failure (Perry, 2013). However, unprecedented media coverage shedding light on pervasive hostility and violence against

LGBTQ identified students at HBCUs and predominantly Black secondary schools, resulting in their departure from these institutions and the abandonment of completing their educations to escape, indicates the contrasting narratives of LGBTQ youth of color.

The young Black man admired by his classmates, developing formidable leadership skills, crediting a historically Black college for the skills rich learning environment and high academic standards he benefited from; juxtaposed with the burden of quiet expectations that he not reveal his sexuality as a gay man (Pritchard, 2007). A gay Black student found hanging in a corridor of a predominantly Black secondary school, introducing Reed and Johnson’s (2010) case study of the African American leader of the school speculating reasons for his death: maybe it was the boy’s relationship with another young man or the failed ability of his father to accept that his son was gay. These are counter-narratives that go untold, a child, lonely in despair, no longer able to bear the weight of pain except finally as a belt growing tighter around his neck. Sadly no one can

talk with him now because in the Black community that story and image does not exist.

The effects are the disproportionate number of these students likely not to finish high school and not go onto college.

As the framing of claims against educational inequity in largely African American classrooms continue to grow in magnitude, it is essential that African American educational systems recover from heterosexist and homophobic cultural constructs of blackness to also meet the needs of LGBTQ students of color in predominantly Black secondary schools and HBCUs. This requires acknowledgement of its emulation of dominant society’s treatment of vulnerable forensic populations, which oftentimes are a majority African American. Recognition of potential safety threats, though critical, are piecemeal treatments to symptoms of educational inequity rather than careful investigation for understanding of the root causes and consequent long-term effects.

Blackness as a cultural construct is systemic and must be addressed organizationally in

African American educational systems of who Black educational leaders are and how they are defined; the formal and informal spaces where Black people historically and traditionally learn; how Black people come to understand what blackness is; and how that understanding determines educational access of some and the exclusion of others.

Education in Blackness: Parallel Lessons of Survival in a Construct

The social influence in the lives of young people that begins in secondary school is where kids learn how to express and strive for their hopes and goals and navigate social circles. The character and frame of mind of a student approaches a climatic shift from young person to adult with the prospect of college, and the competitive and exclusive nature of access to higher education from the application process to the first day of class

begins in high school. American schools across the country recognize the best (male) athletes and prettiest (biologically female) girls as the popular kids. They are the dominant forces determining the labels, practices and status of the rest of the school, including at times the adults. The “nerds or geeks” (not lucky enough to be both smart and attractive), aren’t as social or popular but more focused on academics. They are subordinate casualties coveting the power and privilege of the dominants. In the context of the cultural construct of “blackness” (figure 2.1), nerds and geeks are doubly perceived as “uncool” and “acting white” when displaying academic skill (Bergin & Cooks 2002).

Additionally, navigating sexuality, gender identification and presentation within

school social caste

system of blackness

is added pressure for

LGBTQ youth of

color, increasing

isolation in school.

Girls who behave Figure 2.1: African American educational Systems formed and informed by and within the construct of blackness like [what is perceived as] boys are tolerated as good athletes, strong personalities or 5tomboys. But later ignored by boys, the behavior is deterred from fear of implications of lesbianism

(Halberstam, 1998). Boys whose behavior is too feminine, are often teased by classmates, accusing them of being like [what is perceived as] girls (Blackburn & McCready 2009).

Though there is no evidence that “tomboyism” in girls or observable opposite behaviors

5 “Tomboyism” is generally describes an extended period of female masculinity (Halberstam, 1998).

in boys will result in future same sex orientation, fear of lesbianism or homosexuality results in extreme reorientation of girls to more feminine socialization (Halberstam,

1998). For boys, less than masculine behavior, unacceptable and hated at any age, incites

“hysterical responses” (p.5) where even perceptions of femininity or homosexuality drives an 611 year old African [all] American football playing Boy Scout to hang himself right before his 12th birthday in 2009, and the 7recent murder of a four year old in North

Carolina (Stufft & Graff, 2011; James, 2009; Roberts, 2012).

Like Black kids who tease other Black kids for doing well in school internalize racism, believing academic skill isn’t an attribute to be associated with being Black or cool, homophobia is also internalized where the immediate reaction to teasing is defense in humiliation and anger (sometimes violently when threatened or attacked in retaliation).

The need is to either hide or defend who you are because it doesn’t fit the image of who you’re supposed to be. Another response to shield against taunts and harassment is to keep hidden any interest or consideration of going where others are known to identify as

LGBT, a Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) meeting at school for support. Blackburn and

McCready (2009) suggest that Black boys beginning to question their sexuality, looking for a place to learn and understand what’s happening, aren’t free to attend their school’s

GSA (though likely one may not exist at the schools they attend) meetings because of “a running joke in [his] predominately Black classes” that “you don’t want to be seen walking up to the third floor where everybody knows the meetings take place,” (p.226).

6 After repeated incidents of bullying for “acting gay” behavior, 11 year old Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover hung himself approaching his 12th birthday (James, 2009). 7 Religious extremist, Peter Lucas Moses, shot and killed his four year old step-son, Jadon Higganbothan, believing the boy, who had slapped a playmate on his bottom, to be gay, (Roberts, 2012).

Ironically, the normative images of masculinity ascribed to Black men, and that

Black boys are taught to aspire to (Black sons are “lil’ man” while White sons are

“buddy”) in the construct of blackness, are attributes of “excessive masculinity” to the

“Black body” in white culture (Halberstam, 1998, p.2). Darker hues of the skin (Black or

Latino) has little to do with virility in sexuality, but rather are images attached to dominant heterosexism, criminality and violence in racism. Additionally, Halberstam

(1998) goes on to link masculinity with power and privilege, yet the strong characteristics

Black women are historically praised for, in assuming roles that would provide both rewards for herself and her [the Black] family, that Black girls are expected to aspire to

(Big Mama matriarch) in blackness, may also appear non-sexual, “mannish” and

(un)marry-able (Hamin, 2008): “Celebrated for her strength, she is [also] blamed for being the emasculating, overbearing, dominating, castrating matriarch who is responsible for all the problems in the Black family, including an absent husband, unmotivated children, and economic problems,” (p.9). The combination of sacrifice, self-reliance and strength could also mean facing challenges alone, and according to Hamin (2008) with increased levels of anxiety, depression and stress.

LGBTQ youth of color continue their own struggle even as more and younger kids are “coming out” and becoming more visible (Graff & Stufft, 2011). As children, going to school and growing up early and quickly with their realities of everyday life becomes a cross-sectional struggle with exploring the meaning of queer. It is a growing knowledge that their lived experience encompasses more than being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or questioning, but also conflicts with the values and beliefs commonly held in the Black understanding of LGBT people. To be African American,

underage LGBTQ identified, and for those who are gender non-conforming, more than coming out, this is the “Process of Becoming” (Lyle, 2009). Cutting through a traditional childhood to a growing understanding of not only pervasive racism but also homophobia and heterosexism at “home” and “experienced as real, concrete, factual” (Lehigh

University LGBTQIA Intercollegiate Conference, 2014) in their own communities. For

LGBTQ youth of color this is a crash course in deviance as resistance (Cohen, 2004) “out there” and often alone. “Finding their own voices across multiple contexts (and multiple systems of oppression) such as resumes and job interviews, social settings, with peers, intergroup dialogue,” (Lehigh University LGBTQIA Intercollegiate Conference, 2014) in addition to completing high school to go onto college; to discover interconnectedness with others like themselves in the impact of hearing stories like theirs, the focus shifts to forming their reflexive narrative which further serves as “a form of critique and resistance” (Neuman, 1996 as cited by Spry, 2001, p.706).

The agency to make schools fit for as many kinds of students possible to create a learning environment for “the other” to prevent obstacles to higher education for LGBTQ youth of color is an examination of African American educational leadership, cultural institutions and networks as intersected with race, class, sexuality and epistemology to create critical pedagogy (Miller & Kirkland, 2010) across schools, community and the academy. It is a systemic and intentional interaction with the structural violence of their communities, of negotiating how to exercise resistance in a system that constantly punishes, challenges or attempts to take autonomy, and a continuous inquiry into the lack of “learning and development programs to help all those for whom it has become acceptable to believe that the school system was not, or is not a good fit,” (Lyle, 2009,

p.294). This is particularly true in historically Black college lecture halls, secondary school classrooms and faith organizations where Black narratives of pride, freedom and achievement are constructed, celebrated, but cannot be LGBT. After decades of lobbying, debate, and increased reports of abuse, violence and suicide of LGBTQ youth, some response has been initiated. In 2003, Harvey Milk High School became an official New

York City public school with 100 students (Inside Schools, 2011). In 2009, Alliance

School, the first gay-friendly middle school in the United States, opened in Milwaukee

(Blackburn & McCready, 2003). But these gains have also been challenged. Harvey Milk

High School was sued on the grounds of discrimination, forcing the school to open its doors to all children and not provide special treatment for LGBTQ youth only (Inside

Schools, 2011).

Furthermore, a gay middle school, largely regarded as inappropriate, is not seen as a priority for middle level students ages nine to eleven to discuss issues some believe

“they’re too young to understand” (Gilbert, 2009). The attempt to maintain autonomy while teaching students how to develop and flex their own must be a balance of negotiating guidance with infringement, and inquiry of the professionals, institutions and networks that create educational systems. Learning about and educating for “the other”

(Kumashiro, 2001) and ultimately ourselves is the epiphany: Interest Convergence in

African American educational systems (Bell, 2004) is culturally divisive when a perceived threat to the social status of some supersede the educational needs of others.

CHAPTER III: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK &

LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction

African Americans are raised and grow up learning this epistemology in the

United States from birth where the Mis-Education of the [American] Negro, according to

Woodson (1935), begins:

When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions.

You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his

'proper place' and will stay in it. If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do

not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. You

do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if

there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes

it necessary. (p.7).

Damage of Root Shock in African American Cultural Institutions

Unrecognized and undervalued, the complexities of multiple LGBTQ African

American identities, in the variations of ways to be “sexed” and “gendered” (Lugg,

2003), are compounded by the experience of traversing the multiple places and social positions of being Black (Figure 3.1) . In Root Shock: How Tearing Up City

Neighborhoods Hurts America, And What We Can Do About It (2005), Mindy Thompson

Fullilove suggests that “[just] as the body has a system to maintain its internal balance, so too, the individual has a way to maintain the external balance between [the self] and the world,” (p.11) in response to trauma to the emotional ecosystem (Fullilove, 2005). To be deeply rooted to the physical environment of the businesses, schools, nightclubs and

other signature structures of the identity of a neighborhood; the people and families who make neighborhoods into communities; to watch it deteriorate and its people displaced; all that once was a hub of social vibrancy and economic activity, cleared away and lost is a shock to one’s roots—Root Shock (2005).

Fullilove’s (2005) root shock of Black communities succumbing to urban renewal frames the unique experience of African American lesbian, gay, bisexual but particularly transgender youth and people navigating multiple places and positions of being Black in dominant society; negotiated by constructions of sexuality, gender identity and presentation in African American socio-cultural institutions. Racial discrimination further complicates the experience of dysphoria in the feeling that “one’s gender identity does not match their assigned sex,” (Peterson, 2013, p.1). The disconnection for a Black

transgender person is not

only from the body but

also participation in

society both dominant

and cultural.

Inequitable

structures of power and

Figure 3.1 Household Incomes of Respondents privilege due to racism is a constant in few resources available in low wage employment, identification discrepancy, fear of law enforcement, and no way in which to communicate concerns, much less acquire the attention of those in power to make changes under interest convergence. The graph of respondent household incomes (figure 3.1) in the National

Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) report Injustice at Every Turn (2011), corroborates findings of horrific living situations of transgender people [represented by dark blue entries] as opposed to the overall LGBT community. Particularly “Black and

Latino/a… people [are] at greater risk for housing, employment, educational discrimination, and decreased access to resources . . . 34% of Black transgender people and 28% of Latino/a transgender people were living in extreme poverty,” (NCTE, 2012 as cited by Dixon, Jindasurat & Tobar, 2012, p.45). Navigating and negotiating systems of oppression for recognition and survival is interrupted when those systems intersect to control every aspect of life and prevent movement (Dixon, Jindasurat & Tobar, 2012;

Dunn & Moodie-Mills, 2012). Moreover, each step blocked in this ongoing process confirms barriers of second class citizenship. Eventually disconnection terminates services and assistance for employment, welfare offices, health insurance, child protective services and public housing authorities, leaving no choice but a life relegated on the fringe (Pitman, 2014). “NCTE also found that 50% of Black respondents had engaged in sex work or sold drugs at some point in their lives,” (Cohen, 2004; Institute of

Medicine, 2011; Pitman, 2014; NCTE, 2012 as cited by Dixon, Jindasurat & Tobar,

2012, p.45).

However, the challenges to cultural identity is root shock in loss of cultural environments like predominantly Black secondary schools Eccles, Wong and Peck

(2006) discuss, particularly traumatic for transgender youth of color. Like a majority of

African Americans, Black transgender, genderqueer or non-conforming men, women and youth struggle internally with their cultural self-image as a result of racism. “There is not a Black [transgender] woman in America who has not felt, at least once, like the ‘mule of

the world’ to use Zora Neale Hurston’s still apt phrase,” (Smith, 1985, p.9). Therefore, as kids are “coming out” much younger than in the past, they are more vulnerable, needing more support and guidance (Cianciotto & Cahill, 2003). The growing familiarity with stories of LGBTQ White students over time has resulted in more research of their experiences and resources necessary to help these young people address their challenges.

In 2007, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) reported 3,000

Gay-Straight Alliances (GSA) in public high schools nationwide (GLSEN, 2010 as cited by the Walker, 2007, para. 27). An extra-curricular school club started by students, a

GSA seeks to bring LGBTQ and straight students together to learn about each other, promote an inclusive school environment, and provide a cultural space of safety and empowerment for “[queer] youth to find ways to make space to assert themselves and work against homophobia within the official curricula of schools,” (Blackburn &

McCready, 2009, p.226). As of 2010 GLSEN reported an increase to 4,000 GSAs (2010).

In contrast, LGBTQ youth of color and specifically those identifying as transgender, face “some of the highest levels of adversity in their daily lives,” (Peterson,

2013, p.2), but racism in dominant society experienced similarly from the White LGBT community results in little support provided from largely White LGBT organizations.

LGBTQ youth of color attending schools that are predominantly White that have GSAs often do not attend, citing content that doesn’t speak to their experiences and feeling disconnected (McCready, 2004 as cited by Blackburn & McCready, 2009, p.227).

Moreover, racism and classism, generally understood to influence curriculum, class size, and hiring of licensed and certified faculty, relegate secondary schools in the country where 75% of students of color attend with far less access to resources and extra-

curriculars than those predominantly White (Cianciotto & Cahill, 2003; Carey, 2005;

Karoly, 2004; Barton, 2003 as cited by Gorski, 2008; National Black Justice Coalition,

Human Rights Campaign, Freedom to Work, Center for American Progress, &

Movement Advancement Project, 2013).

Consequently, cultural institutions are relied upon to provide the preparation and reinforcement for the realities of life as an African American in the United States, and a refuge for spiritual strength to endure a sense of powerlessness and hatred (Dantley,

2005). But because being gay or gender nonconforming equals White issues for White people, GSAs and other inclusive groups, that could assist LGBTQ Black student academic progress and college aspirations in predominantly Black schools where gay kids “do not exist,” are regarded unnecessary as a result (Moodie-Mills, 2011).

Therefore, the significance of the effects of homophobia and heterosexism when executor and victim are both Black is the perceived betrayal of community and culturally institutionalized epistemology of being Black resulting in negotiations of Blackness with sexuality. In his paper Paradise Found? Black Gay Men in Atlanta: An Exploration of

Community, Tobias Spears (2010) examines how LGBTQ people and youth of color navigate this socio-culturally constructed system of blackness in pitting and dividing into

“two groups . . . ones who identify more with their sexuality and others who cherish more their Blackness,” (Conerly, 2000 as cited by Spears, 2010, p.9). LGBTQ youth of color also “code switch” between their intersecting racial, sexual and gender identities, grappling with traversing multiple communities and intersecting spaces in and out of school. To shield rejection and ridicule, and to garner and maintain respect and credibility, “[passing] has been a survival strategy for many oppressed people,” (Lugg,

2003, p.104). As stated earlier, in the presence of straight Black boys one must “man up” behaving more masculine, and girls must “soften” their dispositions to become more feminine. Light skinned African Americans have passed as White, and lesbian teachers in the 1920’s married falsely to pass as straight (Blount, 1998 as cited by Lugg, 2003).

“Inherently discriminatory, undermining personal integrity and autonomy while eroding and denying an individual’s legal and political rights . . . queer people, in particular, are repeatedly told they must pass as non-queer to [be allowed access],” (Lugg, 2003, p.104).

Breaking culturally institutionalized binaries of Black manhood, Black womanhood and blackness, LGBTQ youth of color are ostracized by heterosexism and homophobia in their cultural institutions and communities, and combined with racism is a

“tricultural” experience of oppression (Cianciotto & Cahill, 2003, p.64). The combination results in the root shock experience of loss of community or membership in blackness because of a preconceived notion that one cannot be both LGBTQ identified and Black.

Hence, predominantly Black secondary schools proven to specifically provide the added motivation and encouragement for Black student academic achievement, and African

American educational leaders and teachers argued to be best equipped to impart and model African American identity (Cianciotto & Cahill, 2003; Eccles, Wong and Peck,

2006; Johnson, 2007) consequently do not acknowledge LGBTQ youth of color, let alone protect them.

For example, Johnson, Singh, and Gonzalez (2014) conducted a participatory action research study with LGBTQ youth of color as an opportunity for the voices of these young people to validate and document their actual experiences in school. These researchers noted that “school personnel,” teachers, school counselors and nurses,

administrators; “urban service providers” and “advocates” not only consistently

maintained that there was no

harassment or violence taking place,

but “[asserted] that there were [no]

8LGBTQQ students who attended

their school; therefore, there was

not a “problem,” (Varjas et al., 2007

as cited by Johnson, Gonzalez & Figure 3.2: K-12 Overall Abuse by Teachers/Staff Singh, 2014, p.420). Unfortunately in predominantly African American secondary schools, statements and beliefs like these

(refuted by figure 3.2) are too often prevalent as these African American educational institutions perfectly demonstrate a system of Black education designed to produce the matrix of domination Collins (2000) outlines in Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge,

Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment.

Implicit is the “rationalization,” that “the problem” teachers and educational leaders refer to are LGBTQ kids and young people. This belief is in turn “. . . controlling and organizing,” (p.8) the professional behavior of Black teachers and educational leaders to reason that no problem exists in their schools because these kids and young people clearly do not. This is their response to the violence and harassment they witness.

Appallingly, on February 12, 2008, 15 year old Lawrence “Latonya/Letisha” King, an

African American eighth grade gender non-conforming teen was shot twice, execution style at point blank range during her computer class at O.E. Green Junior High School in

8 Johnson, Gonzalez and Singh (2014) use the “TQQ” to note transgender, queer and questioning youth.

Oxnard, CA (Genzlinger, 2013). The reality is that social and cultural institutions like schools, in addition to churches/temples/mosques, communities and families, are where social as well as cultural expectations, norms and values are taught, cultivated and enforced (Griffin & Ouellett, 2003).

Secondary school faculty, staff, administrators and social service practitioners

who actively

participate in or

witness

homophobic

behavior, doing

nothing to stop it, Figure 3.3: How often faculty Intervene when Hearing Homophobic Remarks illustrated in staggering numbers by figure 3.3, are all complicit in obstructing the path of LGBTQ youth of color to academic success leading to college, and additionally exacerbating an already callous educational environment that “interferes with their ability to learn,”

(GLSEN, 2003, p.6). Their lack of agency endangers the safety of these students when evidence and stories from the kids and young people themselves shows education professionals “looking the other way” (Mahan et al., 2007; Singh, Orpinas & Horne,

2010 as cited by Johnson, Gonzalez & Singh, 2014, p.420) when a child is in pain or being hurt. 25% of LGBTQ youth of color in middle, junior high and high schools indicate skipping school at least once a month to avoid bullying and harassment (Dunn &

Moodie-Mills, 2012), and data in figure 3.4 from the NCAVP Report (2012) confirms that victims and survivors of abuse that includes beatings and killings, vary widely in age.

Researchers (Grossman & D’Augelli, 2009; Lewis & Johnson, 2011; Singh,

Meng, & Hansen, 2013 as

cited by Johnson, Gonzalez

& Singh, 2014) agree,

however that much of the

data depicting the

experiences of these young

people is likely incomplete

as too often most incidents, Figure 3.4: Age of Survivors and Victims including violent crimes in and out of school, go unreported.

Fear of rejection from friends and family, and the added disconnection from school because of silent and idle school personnel results in fewer relationships in which transgender students in particular feel safe to confide (Peterson, 2013; Nuttbrock et al.,

2009 as cited by Institute of Medicine, 2011). Transgender kids and young people grades

K-12, reported rates of 78% of harassment, 35% physical assault inflicted by both students and teachers or staff members; and 12% of sexual violence (Grant et al., 2011, p.3). Fear caused 30% percent of transgender youth of color to skip at least one day of school per month, and six percent were expelled for nothing more than being or displaying their gender identity/expression (Peterson, 2013, p.2; Grant et al., 2011, p.36).

Peterson (2013) and Dunn and Moodie-Mills’ (2012) absenteeism data substantiates earlier claims of not only lower high school graduation rates for LGBTQ students of color, but also fewer going to college. In her article “The Kids Are Not

Alright: The Plight of African American LGBT Youth in America’s Schools,” Danielle

Moodie-Mills (2011) sees the

environment as well as support staff

and faculty of a school as determinants

of African American LGBTQ

students’ academic performance. She Figure 3.5: Grade Point Average (GPA) (reported by LGBT youth of color) confers findings (figure 3.5) of the

“achievement gap [is] even wider for

LGBT youth of color who are bullied .

. . with GPAs a half (.5) point lower than students who do not experience harassment in school,” (Moodie-Mills, Figure 3.6: Aspires to Attend College (reported by LGBT youth of color) 2011, p.2). The likelihood of postsecondary educational pursuits (figure 3.6) accordingly falls with 23% of LGBT

African Americans who did complete high school (40%) getting a college degree as opposed to 67% of LGBT Whites (Dunn & Moodie-Mills, 2012; Kastanis & Gates,

2014).

Finally, as attending school becomes more degrading and above all more dangerous, readiness isn’t the only hurdle to college. Unable to stand going to school at all, LGBTQ kids and young people of color simply stop going (Dunn & Moodie-Mills,

2012). In its discussion of LGBTQ youth of color prospects, the Broken Bargain for

LGBT Workers of Color Report (2013) declares unequal educational attainment as the number one reason for future life struggles. The report cites the Detroit LGBT youth

support organization, Ruth Ellis Center reporting in 2006 “that more than 60% of the high school-age population it serves had dropped out due to bullying or discrimination,”

(National Black Justice Coalition, Human Rights Campaign, Freedom to Work, Center for American Progress, & Movement Advancement Project, 2013, p.13).

In 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau listed Detroit as the second highest African

American populated city in the United States at 81.6% of the population citywide. As of

2010, it has grown to be first highest, with Black students comprising most of the 97.5% minority demographic of Detroit City high schools (Tsoi-A-Fatt, 2009). Tsoi-A-Fatt

(2009) observes “behavioral and psychological outcomes…as distractions in school,” where “[The] constant threat of violence in low-income communities prevents youth from visioning their life prospects, as they are uncertain of even surviving into adulthood,” (p.4). Nowhere in her report is there mention of the alarmingly high number

of LGBTQ youth of color

also dropping out reported

in the Broken Bargain for

LGBT Workers of Color

Report (2013) (figure 3.7),

because of harassment, Figure 3.7: Dropped Out Because Of Harassment violence, or, in her words,

“This dearth of services [having] an adverse effect on youth development in the community,” (Tsoi-A-Fatt, 2009, p.4). The added constraints of enforced cultural constructs of race, sexuality, gender identity and presentation is the perpetuation of “mis- education” of Black students and people (Woodson, 1933) that I argue is fostered in

African American cultural institutions like schools. Referenced earlier, under resourced predominantly Black secondary schools already struggle to serve student bodies largely of color in general.

Intersecting systems of oppression surrounding race and class in dominant society are the enemies of providing quality education to lower income African American students. However, while school personnel model heterosexism and homophobia, students learn, and are given free rein to “police,” punish, and bully, as LGBTQ youth of color prepare not for college, but to contend with the staggering longitudinal effects imminent in a lack of educational access (Walters 1998; Smith 1998; as cited by Lemelle

& Battle, 2004).

A Future in Root Shock for LGBT Youth of Color

Unequal academic preparation predicting future challenges, introduces the accumulated indifference of the institution of Black respectability, pathologizing and punishing deviant identities in a growing amount of correlating data documenting the experiences of LGBTQ youth of color in the NCAVP Report (2012). Higher dropout rates results in increased numbers of unskilled and unemployed LGBTQ youth of color due to racism, homophobia and 9transphobia similarly experienced in schools that persists in the search for jobs (National Black Justice Coalition, Human Rights Campaign,

Freedom to Work, Center for American Progress, & Movement Advancement Project,

2013; Dunn & Moodie-Mills, 2012; ). Intersectionally, the constructions of institutionalized sexuality, gender, racial and cultural identities assemble discrimination

9 Singh and McKleroy (2011) refer to Nemoto et al., (2004) to define transphobia as “individual level as well as social prejudice and stigma against transgender people frequently experienced within family, community, and societal contexts” (Nemoto et al., 2004, p. 725 as cited by Singh & McKleroy, 2011).

and violence that pose structural barriers for LGBTQ youth of color to lead their lives later as adults. As a result, “LGBT workers of color are at significant risk of being unemployed,” (National Black Justice Coalition, Human Rights Campaign, Freedom to

Work, Center for American Progress, & Movement Advancement Project, 2013, p.i.).

15% of LGB and 26% percent of transgender, and 63% of LGBT youth, all African

American, were reported as unemployed (Dunn & Moodie-Mills, 2012; Peterson, 2013).

Powerful and wealthy corporations count on unskilled labor with little education, as their social and cultural expendability is an advantage in occurrences of discrimination disputes (National Black Justice Coalition, Human Rights Campaign, Freedom to Work,

Center for American Progress, & Movement Advancement Project, 2013). For LGBTQ youth of color who had little choice but to escape school, “predatory employment” is often all that is available. Regrettably it’s also a return to an adverse experience and environment akin to their schools. Moreover, the 1952 creation of the Diagnostic and

Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and subsequent listing of homosexuality as a mental disorder, established the foundation of employment discrimination against

LGBT people, solidifying joblessness for LGBT people of color (Institute of Medicine,

2011). Job insecurity is the intersectional experience of traversing and navigating discrimination of multiple identities with little education and even less legal protection when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) fails to even follow discriminatory hiring and dismissal practices (National Black Justice Coalition, Human

Rights Campaign, Freedom to Work, Center for American Progress, & Movement

Advancement Project, 2013). 34 states currently make legal refusal to hire and random dismissals based on sexuality, gender identity and presentation, (Jones, 2013; National

Black Justice Coalition, Human Rights Campaign, Freedom to Work, Center for

American Progress, & Movement Advancement Project, 2013).

Educational obstacles and under employment sets off a chain reaction in parallel economic and health care outcomes (Dunn & Moodie-Mills, 2012). Most health insurance is provided through employment, that low-wage jobs with little to no benefits do not afford, leaving 44% of African American gay men and lesbians and 33.9% of

LGBT African-American couples raising children to live in poverty (National Black

Justice Coalition, Human Rights Campaign, Freedom to Work, Center for American

Progress, & Movement Advancement Project, 2013). According to the Broken Bargain for LGBT Workers of Color Report (2013), “workers must rely on salaries up $13.83 and as little as $7.69 an hour to cover the costs of transportation, housing expenses, food and clothing, retirement savings and more,” but do not account for support of two children typical in an African American same sex couple household (p.41).

LGBTQ youth of color later as underemployed adults can anticipate dilemmas and hardships with their lives increasingly configured under the control of “insufficient income” ultimately affecting “sporadic health care coverage, [and] inadequate or unsafe housing,” (Dunn & Moodie-Mills, 2012, p.3). Even with recent health care reforms now offering coverage to some 50 million Americans (16.3% of the population) previously uninsured, “[high]-quality care . . . that is ‘right’ (effective), well-coordinated, safe, patient-centered, and timely,” is not necessarily the kind received (Fox, 2012; Schoen et. al, 2006). For LGBTQ people and youth of color, institutional racism and structural stigma in relation to homophobia meet at the point of visits to health care providers in a

generally distorted understanding of the difference between service versus care (Institute of Medicine, 2011).

Medical schools, like teacher certification programs, provide little training on addressing the needs of LGBT youth and people, and comparable to school personnel, medical staff, with little cultural competence are ineffective in treating LGBT patients who are also African American (Dunn & Moodie-Mills, 2012). Constructed images determine which health care services are to be “accessed only by men and other services only by women” while health care providers routinely forget or overlook critical gender specific services such as prostate or gynecological exams (Transgender Law Center,

2004, p.2). Additionally, this develops into a consistent distrust of health care providers where “[medical] issues often go untreated due to the lower rates of health care coverage and these communities’ hesitancy to seek treatment,” (Dunn & Moodie-Mills, p.5, 2012).

Distrust postpones regular visits for medical care and increases health risks, in communities of color in general, when culturally competent treatment isn’t available.

“[Black] gay adults are the demographic most likely to have diabetes…black lesbians are the most likely demographic to be obese, which results in higher rates of other health problems that are related to their weight,” (p.5).

However, confrontations with substandard and “judgmental care” regarding lifestyle practices (Garofalo et al., 2006; Advocates for Youth, 2007) doesn’t end with dominant society medical care facilities. As stated previously by the Kaiser Family

Foundation (2007), African Americans represented 45% of new HIV cases, but comprised only 12.8% of the American population in 2006; while in contrast, comprising

66% of the American population, Whites represented 35% of new cases in 2006 (Kaiser

Family Foundation, 2007). African American cultural institutions that could address through conditioned intervention, “social determinants” for example, earlier discussed and widely known in the Black community “[to] be associated with a number of factors that have been understood to play a significant role in the spread of HIV/AIDS,” in the

African American community, choose instead to ignore them (Institute of Medicine,

2011, p.72-73). The Institute of Medicine (IOM) stated:

[factors] include a higher likelihood of unemployment or low-wage employment,

less likelihood of having health care coverage, inferior quality of care, limited

accessibility of treatment medications and interventions, community

destabilization, and sexual networks composed of high-risk (more likely to have

HIV infection) members. (p.73)

Here I return to my earlier argument of Fullilove’s (2005) root shock at the root of

“community destabilization” self-imposed. There is no denying the accountability of the government in its “lack of interventions targeting Black, Latino, or other racial and ethnic minority men who have sex with men,” that led to “differential treatment,” (Lyles et al.,

2007 as cited by IOM, 2011, p.73). Intersectional oppression of racism and classicism are apparent in not only unacceptable medical care and affordable health insurance long overdue, but also under employment as a result of unequal education in under resourced schools.

However, while I recognize the victories of Black politics and the Black education establishment, compelling the government to acknowledge its lack of “basic humanity,” the African American community must also concede to its own (Cohen,

2004). Fighting oppression that is “simple and uncomplicated” (Wilchins, 1997 as cited

by Kumashiro, 2001), ignores culturally institutionalized constructs of heterosexism and homophobia in the Black community. African Americans in 2000 were 14.8% of the

American population, and as of the 2010 Census, a two and a half percent decrease put the Black American population at 12.3% (Bowman, 2010). Additionally, destabilization is at the root of LGBTQ youth of color disproportionately at higher risk for contracting

HIV and AIDS, with African American male to female (MTF) transgender individuals having the highest infection rates (Garofalo et al., 2006, p. 231), yet neither has been fully validated nor entirely challenged by the Black community. It is again as if to say, in

Fullilove’s (2005) words, “It’s okay if they die,” (Flanders, 2013, para. 14).

Even with new healthcare reforms, barriers continue to remain in place impeding care and services from reaching LGBTQ youth of color. The National Lesbian and Gay

Journalist Association (NLGJA) (2014) points out that besides the isolation and fear usually preventing LGBTQ youth of color from seeking medical care is a return to the problematic “system of binary gender designation for transgender health care recipients,”

(Garofalo et al., 2006, p. 231; NLGJA, 2014). Gender specific products require complex maneuvering of gender identity, dictating coverage of “parts” that are male or female offered by insurance companies (NLGJA, 2014, para.15). The NLGJA also notes the exclusion of “hormones, surgeries, and mental health coverage” of many plans (NLGJA,

2014, para.15) all “medically necessary care [having] life-long effects on their

[transgender youth] ability to learn, work, and care for themselves in the future,”

(Transgender Law Center, 2004).

Moreover, the NLGJA refers to the Philadelphia based LGBT health and social services Mazzoni Center report of 35% who remain uninsured with the challenge

continuing to be those youth expelled from their homes because of their sexuality, gender identity and presentation (NLGJA, 2014). “One in four young LGBTQ people are forced out of their homes because of parental objection to their sexual orientation,” (Funders for

Lesbian and Gay Issues, 2005). It is also estimated that among 65% of the homeless are people of color, and 44% are African American gay or lesbian youth (Advocates for

Youth, 2011; National Black Justice Coalition, Human Rights Campaign, Freedom to

Work, Center for American Progress, & Movement Advancement Project, 2013, p.13).

Before the Affordable Care Act, although removed from their homes, LGBTQ youth of color were still able to obtain benefits if their parent or guardian provided a letter proving their independence, but the immorality of having caused their child’s homelessness isn’t something most parents were not willing to admit (Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues,

2005; Out for Change, 2005).

These parents in the cultural institution of family, similar to those education professionals in predominantly Black schools, and educational leaders operating from foundations in the Black church, discussed later, fixate on the pathologized behavior of a deviant rather than the developing identities of their children and students (IOM, 2011).

Additionally, this is also a common mistake shared by African American cultural institutions due to heterosexism, respectability, and liberal ideology. Oftentimes the latter can be just as ineffective as more conservative policy in dominant society social service institutions apparent in the confusion of service versus care. Therefore, LGBTQ youth of color are at risk, and transgender youth are particularly vulnerable when seeking shelter from social services (Funder for Lesbian and Gay Issues, 2005). Hostile environments of

“disparaging and transphobic comments from staff at homeless shelters” and the

allowance of similar behavior “from others seeking such services, as well as a general lack of services tailored to the particular needs of transgender persons” are clearly patchwork improvements from a lack of cultural competency, (Kenagy, 2005 as cited by the IOM, 2011, p.274).

Furthermore, resembling prison system placement procedures mentioned earlier, shelters are neither sensitive to nor account for gender identity in placing transgender homeless youth in housing or foster care (Funder for Lesbian and Gay Issues, 2005).

Instead these youth, despite physical features, “gender as opposed to their birth sex,” or a conversation with a young person to assess their needs, they are assigned to opposite

“segregated sex” housing that could place them in danger (National Black Justice

Coalition, Human Rights Campaign, Freedom to Work, Center for American Progress, &

Movement Advancement Project, 2013, p.13). Alongside educational failure familiar to what drives youth to leave “in [the] difficulty of completing school,”, once in the homeless and foster care system, little seems better or even different from the original experiences bringing these young people to the social services system (Advocates for

Youth, 2011; National Black Justice Coalition, Human Rights Campaign, Freedom to

Work, Center for American Progress, & Movement Advancement Project, 2013). The

Broken Bargain for LGBT Workers of Color Report (2013) states that, “only one-third of shelters or agencies serving homeless youth offer GED programs and less than one-third offer vocational training that can help people obtain needed job skills,” (Advocates for

Youth, 2011; National Black Justice Coalition, Human Rights Campaign, Freedom to

Work, Center for American Progress, & Movement Advancement Project, 2013, p.13).

Derrick Bell: Profound Knowledge of Critical Race Theory & Interest Convergence in Black Education Systems

Heterosexism and homophobia copy the same characteristics as racism in interest convergence, and the counter narrative for LGBTQ youth of color is exile. They are barred not only from the heritage and history held in regard of their communities but also the privilege and opportunities full membership and therefore access would afford. Along these lines, racial/ethnic communities of color, specifically the African American community, have socially reproduced a new educational failure within a tradition of homophobia in creating a barrier to higher education for LGBTQ youth of color.

As a frame of Critical Race Theory, interest convergence illustrates systems

“perfectly designed to deliver the results [they] produce,” (Langley et al., 2009, p.79;

Bell, 2004). Within a dominant structure of society, populations of people are marginalized into a dichotomy of an achievement gap where power creates constructs of control. According to Derrick Bell (2004), only when it was racially fortuitous did “the interests of blacks in achieving racial equality . . . converge with the interests of whites in policy-making positions,” (p.69). Therefore, every aspect of livelihood is touched by the rippling effects of this gap rooted in racism, ubiquitous in scope throughout history and in impact on contemporary African American life.

With the election of an African American president and increased numbers of college educated and middle class Blacks, the Social Reproduction (Williams, 2007) of interest convergence in the African American community recognizes only a “precious few [blacks] too quickly cited as ‘success stories’” (Bell, 2004, p.80); initiating a counter narrative of the movement for civil rights and Black liberation that would leave out countless others who remain unacknowledged. Having moved into key positions to

exercise access given by a voice, the campaign of the precious few too often does not include those not fortunate enough to boast similar stories of success. In addition, for those who possessed the wherewithal, whenever possible, better opportunities for themselves were fervently sought out to create unobstructed access for their children. The reasons and actions of those few Blacks were consciously made and justifiably understood. It isn’t unheard of for people to want more out of their lives, or for parents to want better for their children. But the counter narrative of damage to others and later division oftentimes was unconsciously denied or overtly ignored.

Racism continues to fashion and enflame “fear of blackness, which emanates from negative cultural beliefs about blacks; the fear of having one’s child treated like black children; the fear that one’s child . . . will lose the race for privilege,” (Lawrence,

2005 as cited in Williams, 2007, p.25). Cohen (2004) and Semmes (1992) however, convey larger implications in African American studies and systems of education. Fear creates “otherness”, dictates nothingness, copies oppression and stratifies the African

American understanding of to whom educational access should be granted in how vulnerable Black communities, particularly LGBTQ Black youth, are thought of and written about (Cohen, 2004).

The battle fought and won by these middle class African American parents did not render their children positioned to receive entitlements equivalent to Whites, but instead only succeeded in further dividing the Black community in interest convergence

(Williams, 2007; Bell, 2004), and in her essay “The Master’s Tools Will Never

Dismantle the Master’s House” Audre Lorde condemns this divisive exclusion. “Without community there is no liberation, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice

between individual and [her] oppression,” (Lorde, 1984, p.112). The privilege of the

“precious few” is a short lived victory. A majority of Blacks unable to escape a social system constructed to preserve racial oppression in the re-segregated schools of their children are essentially left alone to contend with the various ordeals causing the exodus of the “precious few” alongside “White flight” (Curry, 2007; Williams, 2007)

Black people have not only risen in power but also stature to become

“policymakers [who] recognize that such relief will provide a clear benefit for [African

Americans] or portions of the populace,” (Bell, 2004, pg. 49). Thus access to higher education for LGBTQ youth of color remains overlooked and often excluded from the discussion and struggle for educational equity in Black social justice discourse. Sustained from wounds of past and present day battles to assert full citizenship, and efforts to recover and claim inalienable rights and privileges overdue, fear is powerful.

Furthermore, currently an interest in providing access to college for LGBTQ youth of color, particularly joining freshmen classes at HBCUs, to many in the Black community, is not in the best interest of the African American community because of fear.

African American Educational Leadership Culture hides more than it reveals, and strangely enough what it hides, it hides

most effectively from its own participants.

—Edward T. Hall (p.39)

The origin of Black consciousness and Black people’s positionality to one another in enduring racism, framing the foundation of African American educational leadership, is a collectivistic cultural context “linked to a sense of duty to group, interdependence, harmony, and working with the group,” (Neuliep, p.49, 2014). This wider cultural context informs a foundation of educational leadership in its direct link to the social, political,

socioeconomic, and structurally violent challenges to African American children and families confronted by Black activism. Action for racial justice and educational equity would structure not only how Black children were and still are reared and educated today, but also how the populace debated these issues, made decisions; and how educational leaders and teachers were trained despite barriers of discrimination hindering access.

Leadership model proposals and pedagogy, intellectual writing on achievement strategies and curriculum based on counter narrative interpretation and usage would follow; but initially, African American educator and leadership training began with the Black community (Fullilove, 2005). “Communal traits with inspirational values [are] ascribed to define leadership” and “[are] . . . associated with nurturing and caring; the role is typically viewed as an ability to show consideration and develop the followers to achieve their fullest potential,” (Jogulo, 2010, p.706).

Fullilove’s (2005) description of the historic Hill District of Pittsburgh, PA, as “a special feeling of the Negro community,” (p.28) was what fed, clothed, housed, cared for and encouraged followership and investment in children and each other (2005). Before the displacement of this once thriving African American community, “The Hill” easily and more accurately reflected a governing body than did its namesake, and Fullilove’s

(2005) depiction is equal to that of any accredited educational leadership training institution:

[The] group establishing a common core of ideas, nurtured both by the local street

scene and the national circuit---were essential to the survival and prosperity of the

community. Because of the generative nature of the interconnections, those that

showed talent had many venues in which to nurture their talents. (p.31)

Interconnections were the grapevine of shared intellectual wisdom, knowledge and stimulation in the community (Jogulo, 2010). Additionally, African American collectivist communities were shared “lived experiences” of dance steps exchanged on the corner, lessons from elders, and communal eyes that taught little boys and girls it didn’t matter that their mothers weren’t there because somebody was always watching (Fullilove,

2005). The “communal traits” of Black communities were transformational attributes and created leadership in what Cohen (2004) refers to as [infrapolitical] work or the

“everyday decisions and actions” (Cohen, 2004, p.31) of everyone who woke up in the morning to the tasks of their livelihood, participating and thus contributing in some way to the operation of the community.

Research finds the highest levels of collectivism in southern regions of the United

States, “particularly in the former slave states. Defeat in the Civil War, the institution of slavery, relative poverty, and the prominence of religion all contribute to the collectivistic tendencies of the South,” (p.54).

Collectivist Black communities shared history, understood the dangers, and often banded together to make the Great Migration North and beyond. Membership in the community, witness to murder, pain and struggle of family, friends and neighbors; and

lived experience of “Jim Crow” was motivation enough to join the movement for social change. Mothers in Montgomery spread word of Mrs. Parks’ arrest in 1955 on the way to and from work by way of the children; and “telephones rang all over the city” organizing

“the beauty parlors, beer halls, factories and barbershops,” (Fullilove, 2005, p.40). A collectivistic Negro culture extending to “[families], [neighborhoods], or occupational

[groups] in which members have diffuse mutual obligations,” (Neuliep, 2014, p.49) fortified against future racism, developing a new identity as African Americans (Eccles,

Wong & Peck, 2006). From the installment of the Emancipation Proclamation, racism and discrimination gave government sanction to substandard social services, demonstrating that for African Americans the U.S. system of government would do nothing more than what its design produced and delivered (Langley et al, 2009), and the community would propel political-educational leadership training as a result.

This organizational framing of blackness was no longer preoccupied with images of assimilation to tolerate oppression for the sake of survival. Instead it was consumed with teaching its people their true form that had become “shapeless, vague, and nebulous” (Neuliep, 2014, p.87) as a result of redefinition to adapt (Tamas, 2000;

Neuliep, 2014; Cohen, 2004). To inform the people of legal entitlements, and what they could become for themselves to overcome hegemony to thrive, the collectivistic community was reborn into the Black Panther Party (1960s-1970s) in Oakland, CA

(Table 2.1). The progression of Black leadership into a revolutionary radicalization of educational leadership was exemplified in this collectivistic community-based social change approach to dispensing knowledge, re-organizing and developing the community for every African American (Langley et. al, 2009; Tamas, 2000; Oden & Casey, 2006).

From informal beginnings at candlelit kitchen table learning spaces to a formal civil rights undertaking for future brick-n-mortar and virtual classrooms, lectures and church sermons evolved into hands-on training to learn how to develop an appreciation for navigating an unjust system.

Black people were neither provided for as United States citizens nor recognized with comprehensive representation and privileges. Meager legal protections did not necessarily give Black people leverage, and according to Bell (2004) the victory of

Brown vs. the Board of Education would not change that. In what would become one of the most meaningful tenets of The Black Panther Party for Self Defense, “[the] organization believed that Black people should be able to ‘determine the destiny of their community,’” (The Black Panther Party Ten-Point Platform, 1966 as cited by Oden &

Casey, 2006, p.3).

Barred from American life and vulnerable, political education classes taught agenda information to raise awareness, requisite to membership in the party and open to the public. Within a dominant society of existing and similarly evolving systemic discrimination and racism, ontologically, Black educational leadership likewise began to change to allow for the reconstruction of the African American identity as a collective revolution. What the system produced and delivered became direct battle grounds for what the Black Panther Party argued the government would not provide and that Black people must now implement on their own. For example, “Free breakfast for children programs, free medical clinics, community education programs for children, free sickle cell anemia testing,” (Oden & Casey, 2006, p.2). Essential elements of an improvement framework were not only the learning process of new Party members but also in the

growing momentum of interaction, learning and discussion. Reframing arguments of status and perceptions of African Americans, specifically Black women in broadening the

Party to include community programs (Phillips, 2014), in the United States to

“conscientization” empowering the entire community, educating to engage everyone into each step of the process of social change to improve policy (Freire, 1971 as cited by

Oden & Casey, 2006, p.8).

African American Leadership and Institutional Critical Spirituality in the Black Church

The collective and communal traditions of African American leadership was once facilitated by Black spirituality, however, as time progresses we see this spirituality grow increasingly individualistic. A growing Black middle class, aging leadership standards and diminishing notions of community, results in narrow educational vision and learning replacing educating and empowering Black people. Mc-churches, a new modern mockery of Black churches, preaches “prosperity gospel” messages of “individual growth over national consciousness . . . a religious cover for materiality, reading spiritual growth and material acquisition as synonymous,” (Pinn, 2002 as cited by Gaines, 2010, p.374).

Similarly, “20% of Black churches offer programs that fulfill Biblical mandate to care for

[vulnerable populations] women, children and the poor,” (Myers, 2010, p.9). Judgment for sins causing hardship are prerequisite to getting help, further evidenced by the level of

HIV/AIDS infection amongst gay Black men pathologized rather than African Americans mobilized against a pandemic disproportionately affecting communities of color nationwide. Consequently, Myers (2010) questions the “good intentions” of the Black church in religious missions’ social programming driving away those in need. Instead of a powerful ally, the Black church is indifferent to LGBTQ people and youth of color

(Reed & Johnson, 2010). A “new barrier” in African American autonomy “[the] Black

Church, as we’ve known or imagined it, [is] dead . . . the idea . . . standing at the center of all that takes place in a community has long since passed away,” (Glaude, 2010, p.1).

Apathy is not oblivion, and the African American experience in the United States refutes Neuliep’s (2014) contention of cultural oblivion to constructs. The radical fight now defends and demands privilege, challenging any threat with a rigor initially used to argue the collective injustice of an achievement gap disenfranchising the education of all

African American students (Welch, 2000; Kumashiro, 2001; Williams, 2007). Ironically, we are entirely aware of the influence and power of our culture, but do not fully exercise it for transformative changes, capabilities history affirms. Importantly, Cohen (1997) and

Perry (2013) agree that the damage done to LGBTQ Black youth, struggling in predominantly Black secondary schools, HBCUs, dominant society and later in their lives, is profound.

Unconsciously yet deliberately, informally and formally, the Black church was foundational in training and socialization of leaders, teachers, students and the community in a philosophy, communication and thinking more conservative than spiritual. Further removed from collectivistic communal achievement, more emphasis was placed on “positional power . . . [and] . . . control [over] information and punish- ments,” (Neuliep, 2014, p.78) that translated into divisions that deemed non-compliance as an indication of neighbors, friends and even family in the community now as “morally wanting” and deviant (Neuliep, 2014; Cohen, 2004, p.29).

Thus we see how the resemblance of the torture and murder of 14 year old

Emmett Till (for being a Black boy in the South), to the brazen stabbing of 15 year old

Sakia Gunn in New Jersey (for being a Black masculine identified lesbian), is lost. The responses to the murders, however were recognizably different. While the Black community rallied behind one, the other murder was comparatively ignored. Emmitt Till was deemed deserving of national attention, though Sakia Gunn’s killing exemplified that

African American LGBTQ identified youth seemingly have no shape and no possibility to exist as members of the Black community due to their perception as deviant individuals.

African American Educational Leadership Updated and Accepting the Challenge

The beauty of difference in blackness recaptures the imagination and scholarship of the African American community, invoking learning and discussion of the reality of fear of the unknown, beginning to discover African American identity as both Black and

LGBT.

African American educational leadership can leverage Black politics to restore

“dangerous memories” of relational radical Black politics that can affect change (Welch,

2000). Remembering past struggle always present in current conflict is visualization of future work in social action, 10human agency, and relational work (Emirbayer &

Goodwin, 1996). “Dangerous memories are a people’s history of resistance and struggle, of dignity and transcendence in the face of oppression,” (p.155). Therefore collaborations and dialogue recreate communal patterns of the past, transform into interconnected relationships in the present, beginning with leaders who model communicative social ethics in a true effort to examine “power configurations” (Welch, 2000). The effort is to

10 According to Alkire, “human agency represents people’s ability to act on behalf of goals that matter to them” a core ingredient to positive social change (Sen, 2000 as cited by Alkire, 2005).

take notice of patterns, how they were shaped to hinder the academic achievement of

LGBTQ youth of color in schools preventing the pursuit of higher education and one’s role in what is formed. In addition, exchanging shared narratives, Black educational leaders recognize and hold themselves accountable for wrongdoing in a social ethics critique of themselves that constructs a difference that appears to make interconnectedness impossible with LGBTQ youth of color. Intellectually and civically evolved, improved radical innovative Black revolution, not exclusive to a racial or cultural framework in battling oppression, is aroused (Emirbayer and Goodwin, 1996;

Jogulo, 2010).

On-going pressures and challenges to the survival of the collective lays the groundwork for practical-evaluative agency in interpersonal leadership style.

Maintaining programming within tightening budgets initiates practical-evaluative agency in African American educational leaders, who logically look to “practical and normative judgments” (Emirbayer & Goodwin, 1996, p.371) to interpersonally protect higher education access for their students. Sequestration, for example, has currently forced 95

HBCUs to face the possibility of cuts to $237 million in Title III Part B funding up to 5%

(Scruggs, 2013). HBCU presidents understand limits to opportunity for infrastructure expansion but more importantly to tuition assistance, college preparation, and ultimately retention of students. Cuts to the availability of “smart” classrooms and wireless technology to their campuses” and “[even] a $2,000 difference can impact the time frame during which [students] can complete their education. . . . [Many] students have to drop out or they have to work or take fewer hours . . . [affecting] their graduation rate,” (p.2).

However, in considering similar yet disproportionate outcomes for LGBTQ students of

color, African American educational leaders opt for the normative among alternative trajectories of action, unable to recognize “individuals made up of multiplicity,” in their students (Emirbayer & Goodwin, 1996; Ross, 2012, p.2).

Program director of the Southern Education Foundation, James T. Minor, states that fewer HBCU administrators are likely to be contemporary scholars current in intellectual dialogue and research relevant to a changing student demographic (AERA,

2013). But in fairness, “emerging demands, dilemmas, and ambiguities” (Emirbayer &

Goodwin, 1996, p.371) leaders must face addressing the educational needs of LGBTQ students and youth of color is often in opposition to 11agency freedom (Alkire, 2005).

Minor explains that the traditional HBCU administrator inherits conflicts they are increasingly expected to address and most difficult to confront in an environment of shared governance, having little power, training or background to make significant decisions or changes (AERA, 2013). Clearly a convergence of constructs of blackness and Black educational leadership contextually reframing arguments of educating and supporting LGBTQ youth of color to prepare for and complete college hasn’t been successful. Less than a quarter of HBCU campuses provide LGBT student support as of

2009, and 60% of HBCU administrators are unlikely to be provided with opportunities for annual evaluation and vital professional development (AERA, 2013), as growing challenges and pressures continue to be unaffirmed.

Combined, the iterational, practical-evaluative and projective agencies working with interpersonal, transpersonal and transformational styles of leadership are, according to Emirbayer and Goodwin (1996), what “[sharpens] the causal statements…of

11 Alkire describes agency freedom as “the freedom to achieve, whatever the person as a responsible agent, decides he or she should achieve,” (Alkire, 2005)

revolutions and collective action [generating and broadening] the range of causal mechanisms . . . ,” (p.358). A synergy of agentic roles working with leadership styles of human agency risk or collapse in its entirety when binary dichotomies of social justice are created (Emirbayer & Goodwin, 1996). It’s also a double standard of innovative individualistic Black leadership in the social context of collective uprising. Successfully redefining and remaking blackness, but refusing to modernize in economic, cultural, and political value priorities despite clear patterns that a changing world and classroom similarly calls for educational leadership to do the same, is the failure of Black educational leadership in a structural context. Gasman (2013) cites Bridges (AERA,

2013) who states:

As the country moves closer to becoming a minority-majority population,

several opportunities exist for HBCUs, from increased enrollments, funding, and

overall attention. However the appropriate strategic leaders and vision must be in

place to take advantage of any opportunities that arise for these schools. (p.3)

Bridges’ (AERA, 2013) 2011-2012 study of historically Black college and university leadership found on average HBCU presidents are three quarters male, upward in age from 60 to 63, and generally serve longer than administrators at colleges and universities nationwide; some 16% are in office 15 to 25 years (AERA, 2013). This questions the traditional process of HBCU and in general African American educational leadership selection and trajectory. Leaders ranging in age, who are women, or LGBT identified are few at HBCUs. Yet according to Bridges (AERA, 2013), academic challenges, curricular changes and community relations, where HBCU administrators tended to most enjoy

their work is opportunity for engagement with schools, other HBCUs and the community in initiating systemic transformative change in African American leadership episteme.

Individual autonomy positively reinforces social systems, and an individual’s needs and aspirations within the social structure of educational organization inspires followership and learner-ship. Leaders aspire to share “epistemological curiosity” promoting study, interpretation, expression and dialogue “upon entering a classroom . . . open to new ideas,” (Wyatt et al, 2008, p.171). HBCUs provide opportunities for a population of students to access higher education where seemingly there is none, responsive to the racial, ethnic, linguistic diversity and economic status issues Wyatt, et al (2008) confers. Yet “Few [pre-service teacher programs] have confronted issues dealing with sexual minorities,” (Mathison, 1998 as cited by Wyatt et al., 2008, p.171). )

“[Cognitive] resources that make criticism and reflection possible,” (Strike, 2007, p.30) are tools for inquiry and a blueprint for the transformation of teacher education programming at HBCUs, framing a model of improvement (Langley et al., 2009) for

Black leadership.

African American Cultural Institutions

How many signifiers does it take to birth a gay colored boy into existence? So I

found myself having to write myself into the conversation and then rewrite and

reshape the paradigm to include my experience as a gay man of color. I should

not have been surprised. Black folks have been rewriting and reshaping

paradigms since slavery. Why should I expect anything more now from a country

that has only added window dressing to its pernicious racism, sexism, classism

and homophobia?

-E. Patrick Johnson (p.1287)

The positional power of African American socio-cultural institutions, once a tool creating identity that embodied empowerment – blackness, has systemically become a

“homogenized identity” performed in Black educational establishments choosing those deemed best to lead (as previously discussed), and determining who deserves an education and merits going to college (Cohen, 1997). Informal and formal educational settings and spaces created for African Americans to find recognition, solidarity and support now personify a paradox; the possibility of an alternative narrative is erased, accepted as nonexistent, relegating LGBTQ youth of color invisible. All associations with the African American community dissolve as “sistahs and brothas” marked other disappear into a collectively operationalized dichotomy of blackness and LGBT identification (Immergut, 2010). Moreover, the challenge for LGBTQ youth of color is intersectional navigation of the “world . . . the system that we have made . . . and [that] young people inherit,” traversing visibility to survive that simultaneously exposes an intra-categorical complexity of relations that marginalization inside and out of their communities has necessitated (Crosby, 2014; Crenshaw, 1991; McCall, 2005).

Continuous change external to the community sets the stage for 12cultural relativism in the context of educational improvement, and African American socio- cultural institutions establish the historical framework. Culturally distinct and internationally recognized, Black institutions lay the foundations of a universally understood struggle for civil rights, social equality and justice as a collective community.

12 Cultural Relativism is defined as a concept that cultural norms and values derive their meaning within a specific social context [def. 1], (n.d.). Dictionary.com dictionary.reference.com/browse/cultural+relativism, retrieved March 26, 2014.

Always influenced and threatened by the consumption of racism, the earlier tool now becomes a weapon to disprove false claims about African American culture, to thoroughly “render them ineffective and dissuade others from following a similar course,” (Kennedy, 2011, p.3). Despite threats and attacks, blackness evolved over the centuries to celebrate triumph. However, change that altered the style and characteristics of leadership engagement with the community would also effect the relational qualities between its members in its cultural institutions. Covert conspiracy theories of deviants and spies originating and circulating inside and out of the community bred policing of behavior observed to be disgraceful with no alternative but to cast it out. A new image shadowed by racism yet gripped by respectability punished those Blacks who said or did anything not aligned with the politics of identity. Maintenance of power and privilege was a means to success grown through systems of Black educational leadership, cultural institutions and networks (which I will later discuss). Therefore in what Cohen (1997) compares to a Model of Inclusion adopted by immigrants newly arrived to the United

States, “. . . some ideas [had] to be stifled,” (Kennedy, 2011, p.3).

Institutional Intersectionality

Inequitable structures of power are intersectional consequences for LGBTQ youth of color institutionalized as social, moral, economic, political and educational penalties for defying cultural expectations and norms; shaped internally and externally into multiple experiences of oppression in homophobia, heterosexism, sexism, classism and racism (McCall, 2005). Crenshaw (1991) originally coined the term Intersectionality to reinsert the complete experience of Black women into the study of oppression, more often a “single-axis” study of hegemony surrounding gender that does not attend to the

multiple layers of oppression endured additionally because of race and class that results in their removal. LGBTQ youth of color in dominant heterosexist anti-racist study, particularly pertaining to the African American experience, reveals similar erasure.

Unfortunately both are omissions that Crenshaw (1991) argues stem from efforts to hide the occurrence of violence against Black women (rape or battery surrounding their gender) and ignore the existence of LGBT identified Black people (violence, exclusion and isolation surrounding their sexual orientation, gender identity and presentation) institutionalized in intra-community Black identity politics (Crenshaw, 1991; Smith,

2014). Additionally, abandoned by their community, both are forced to confront their oppressions, barring them from access to economic, political and educational resources.

Discussions of how Black women and LGBTQ youth of color are oppressed in the African American community, evoke internal accusations of instigating division where none does or should exist, and uncovers additional contradictions in the Black community. The acceptance of physical violence against “sistahs” celebrated as “strong

Black women” (Crenshaw, 1991; Hamin, 2008) results in the erroneous label of those challenging such injustices as sellouts. Sellouts create division in the community “airing dirty laundry” rather than “keeping business in the house.”

The Institution of the Black Family: To Be or Not to Be

Joining single Black women with children in their battle against intersecting systems of oppression are LGBTQ youth of color; overly represented in high school dropout rates, homelessness, increased rates of incarceration; HIV and AIDS infection; violent attack and murder, who are also more likely to live in poverty institutionally

“routinized” and accepted. Further, the result is the perception of both groups as intra-

community threats to the cultural institutions of respectability and the Black family

(Smith, 2014). Williams’s (2007) discussion of public versus private school choice of

Black middle class parents, illustrates a dangerously constructed “homogenized identity” of Black families. Though based on better opportunities in the future for their children, these Black middle class parents ultimately demonstrated the belief of some that they were entitled to different circumstances over others; were intrinsically different from lower income Black parents and children who drag their issues into the classroom. But the “flight” (p.12) of White families from later middle class African American communities, the favoring of affluent school communities over poor rural community schools, and the loss of faith by African American middle class parents in the ability of urban public schools to competitively educate are systemic and institutional characteristics of the damage done by capitalism (2007). “Poverty is a class condition . . . a permanent feature of U.S. capitalism that affects women, men and children of the lower strata of the U.S. working class,” (Burnham, 1985, p.15).

Black middle class parents didn’t want their children to integrate with Black poverty, and this revealed a shared fear in a culturally constructed identity of Black families based on the normative heterosexual White nuclear family: the threat of blackness. White middle class parents counted on silent covenants in interest convergence to keep their children from integrating with Black children at all, and as more affluent members of the community, White and later Black, abandon schools and neighborhoods, largely single Black mothers, who also want better academic achievement and chances at college for their children, are isolated as other. Cut off from social, economic, political and educational access, there is little to no choice of where to

send their children to school, and they are later blamed for causing their children’s issues and lack of motivation in the classroom (Williams, 2007; Hamin, 2008; Cohen, 2004).

Intersectionality theorizes multiple categories of difference that compounds consequent oppression (McCready & Blackburn, 2009; McCall, 2005; Collins, 2005), but engenders multiple aspects of new identities in non-normative non-traditional lived experiences of autonomy. In a reconfiguration of behavior institutionalized as “morally wanting” (Cohen, 2004, p.43), the realities of LGBTQ youth of color and single Black mothers battling poverty are engaged in a shared approach to shifting the trajectory of survival of the Black family in deviance as resistance (Cohen, 2004). Such an analysis, both McCall (2005) and Erel et al., (2008) caution, risks “depoliticisation” of the oppressions of marginalized groups (Erel et al., 2008, p.282), trivializing differences significant to each. However, an investigation of the interconnected lived experiences of intersecting systems of oppression, shared by LGBTQ youth of color and single Black women with children, requires a complex inquiry that emphasizes the need “to account for multiple grounds of identity when considering how the social world is constructed,”

(Crenshaw, 1991, p.1242). It compels against a diluted discussion, affirming multiple differences in identity, understanding and dynamics, distinct, yet shared and critical in the

“non-traditional, or non-normative nature of black families” kin or “chosen [families]”

(Battle et al, 2003, p.93; Mays et al., 1998, p.74).

Fundamentally and positionally, LGBTQ youth of color and single Black mothers are “structurally unable to control an exclusive “ghetto” in their cities” or schools

(Cohen, 2004, p.29); similarly forced to choose between livelihood and humanity; motherhood/parenthood or employment; education or daily physical and emotional attack; visibility or isolation; personal intimacy or judgment; family or seclusion. Figure

3.8 illustrates that this is not a challenge for Black women or LGBTQ youth of color based solely on race, sexuality, gender or gender presentation and identification but rather

“[social] differentiations . . .of the capital/labor relation . . . [and] the unequal competition

results in disproportionate

representation of women

and minorities in the

impoverished strata . . . ,”

(Burnham, 1985, p.15).

Figure 3.8 Theoretical Framework lived experience of intersectional oppression Moreover, inequitable structures of power inside cultural communities are reinforced by assistance offered conditionally or not at all based on respectability. Yet,

LGBTQ youth of color and poor single Black women with children rise to the task of creating “adaptive structures, positive variations in family form [representing] resiliency of sub-populations,” (Cohen, 2004, p.29; Battle et al, 2003, p.94; Mays et al., 1998).

Simply stated, LGBTQ youth and poor single Black women interconnect in the experience of building and sustaining non-traditional, non-normative or chosen families under circumstances of marginalization in and by their communities. Simultaneous difference and oppression endured in gender, sexuality, gender identification and

presentation; ethnic or racial identification and class (figure 3.2) reveals multiple meanings, establishes multiple identities, and inspires fierce interdependencies (Lugg,

2011).

CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS & LITERATURE REVIEW

RESISTANCE

We are socially and intellectually armed and prepared to claim and defend our

cultural ancestral intangible jewels.

This is a fight, a struggle of style to protect and secure our survival and legacy . .

. [We] have crawled up a long and thorny runway to get here and have the scars

to prove it and the stamina to get up and demand you understand . . .

-Michaela Angela Davis, (p.62-63)

Deviant Resistance and Autonomy as a Means of Survival

The fixation on deviant behavior rather than developing identity is not only a preoccupation with homogenized blackness, but reveals a deeper threat of the unique experience of the intersecting multiple identities, perceived in the discoveries of blackness in anything queer. The “documented underrepresentation” and crippled

“motivation to attend to the underserved and under addressed needs of [transgender, queer and questioning] TQQ [Black] youth in particular,” makes it increasingly clear that

African American cultural institutions would rather engage in the organized institutional extermination of the experiences of these students rendered “virtually nonexistent,” in cultural violence (Gonzalez & McNulty, 2011 as cited by Johnson, Gonzalez & Singh,

2014, p.421).

In contrast, though lived experience of structural and cultural violence affects trauma, it also grows transcendence in autonomy as deviant resistance (Cohen, 2004).

Their “acts, decisions, or behaviors … [are] attempts to create greater autonomy over one’s life, to pursue desire, or to make the best of very limited life options,” (Cohen,

2004, p.40). The meaning making in self-authoring identities for themselves in “daily confrontations” with intersections of place and position, race, sexuality, gender identity and presentation are infrapolitical acts for transgender youth of color (Meszaros, 2007;

Cohen, 2004, p.31). Particularly in school are the “everyday contests over space, dress, and autonomy,” (Cohen, 2004, p.31) not intended to result in the structural and direct violence that occurs, but what Livermon (2012) calls “cultural labor” or:

[Public] naming and performance of gender and sexuality dissidence . . . [created]

forms of visibility to enable what Judith Butler calls ‘livable lives’…when Black

queers bring dissident sexualities and gender nonconformity into the public arena.

Visibility refers to not only to the act of seeing and being seen but also [to] the

process through which individuals make themselves known in the communities as

queer subjects. (p.300)

What transgender youth of color perceive as freedom and African American cultural institutions deem deviant together form resistance as both participate in the experience of

“creating” the whole and free self in recognition (Livermon, 2012). Nevertheless, Cohen

(2004) requires the distinction to be made to demonstrate an intent that could be mobilized into deviant resistance, “intent to political resistance [is] to defy law, interactions, obligations and normative assumptions viewed as systemically unfair,”

(p.39). How is an institution improved in such a collaboration, and can it be mobilized?

The distinction is implicit in the interaction Mrs. Johnson, the assistant principal and subject of Reed and Johnson’s (2010) study, describes with one of her student, a young transgender Black woman at her school. Johnson reframes the experience of

LGBTQ students in her school where to her these students “tended to take on the

aggressor role versus victims of bullying,” (Reed & Johnson, 2010, p.399) as though they’re “trying to be seen. It’s like they want to be heard,” (Reed & Johnson, 2010, p.399). On one hand, Mrs. Johnson pathologizes the actions of her transgender students in a common argument in the African American community. Rather than keep secret their identity and sexuality, LGBTQ youth and people call attention to themselves causing their own harassment and violence. On the other hand, in her statement, “It’s like they want to be heard,” it could also be argued that Mrs. Johnson doesn’t question their agency alone, but also seems confused and interested in knowing why her students would want to be heard so much so as to suffer the treatment to follow. To this degree,

Johnson’s question mirrors Cohen’s (2004):

[Did] they understand, expect, and experience negative consequences from these

choices; and does such behavior demonstrate some degree of agency on the part

of marginalized individuals that can be mobilized for more explicitly political

goals? (p.38)

Furthermore, Mrs. Johnson continues with, “[my] first reaction was lord, why are they coming to me with this?” (Reed & Johnson, 2010, p.400), confirming her questions of not only their agency but their choice to confide in her. She is an administrator of the school building after all, but she doesn’t know what to make of these young people, who they are, or what they’re trying to do knowing they may be hurt. The discomfort Mrs.

Johnson expresses with her students and their choices as well as her struggle to make sense of them is understandable. But it is the intent behind the choices of Johnson’s students that needs to be deciphered. Blanket judgment and blame alone aren’t assessed;

Johnson doesn’t approve but she’s also confused, inquisitive and genuine concern is also

present. This isn’t the first experience of her spirituality and religious foundations clashing. Further study of the contradiction behind women wearing pants, she initially believed wrong, similarly helped her over time to understand that, “[it] happens so often now [to where] I’ve learned to look at the kid as being a kid,” (Reed & Johnson, 2010, p.400).

The contradiction of Mrs. Johnson’s spirituality simultaneously causes her struggle to understand her LGBTQ students’ identities, and allows her to recognize them, even as she negates them. Mrs. Johnson may never understand LGBTQ identity, but in her ongoing interactions with her students, she acknowledges them as people, students, and her students. With additional training and further research, of which Mrs. Johnson has demonstrated to take upon herself for her own understanding, “[the] hope… [is to] not stop there, merely noting their deviant status and the seemingly self-destructive

“nature” of such acts. Instead . . . we also explore why people believe they made these decisions,” (Cohen, 2004, p.38).

Most importantly, however, Reed and Johnson (2010) relay Mrs. Johnson’s refusal to affirm her student’s identity, but in the exchange capture the girl affirming herself:

One young man I was speaking to about a situation and I addressed him as young

man and he said, “No, I’m a girl.” And they have their girl names for whatever;

you know whatever their preference is. They will let [you] know, I want to be

recognized as a girl. (p.399)

Mrs. Johnson’s religious beliefs and spirituality again conflict in a self-righteous attempt to separate the girl from her identity in “[hating] the sin not the sinner,” (Reed &

Johnson, 2010, p.400), but Mrs. Johnson vividly remembers this young lady to recount this exchange. The infrapolitical act, the difference made whether intended or not, was the student’s visibility and memorability rooted in her identity in spite of Mrs. Johnson’s attempt at removal. According to Mrs. Johnson, the student corrects her often saying,

“No, I’m a girl,” and has a name that she wants to be used. She does so exactly in Mrs.

Johnson’s rendering to, “make it known” to be recognized and not just seen (Reed &

Johnson, 2010, p.399; Livermon, 2012). Essentially, the student refuses to disappear and remain silent. The girl’s actions and words demonstrate an intent to maintain her identity

“to live one’s life as an out… transgender …person…driven by a conscious intentionality to resist the heteronormativity of the society,” (Cohen, 2004, p.39).

African American Educational Networks

The Black [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] is hard pressed to gain audience

among his heterosexual brothers; even if he is more talented, he is inhibited by

his silence or his admissions. This is what the race has depended on in being able

to erase homosexuality from our recorded history. The "chosen" history. But the

sacred constructions of silence are futile exercises in denial. We will not go away

with our issues of sexuality. We are coming home.

-Essex Hemphill (p.363)

Educational environments clinging to a single framework of traditional ideas, knowledge and consciousness is basis for a cultural and institutional network of social power in the African American understanding of LGBTQ identified Black people and youth (Harper & Gasman, 2008). Southern values and religious influences on HBCUs is significant in the hierarchical power dynamics that both manipulates the organization of

these colleges and universities as well as opposition to identity development within the structure of institutionalized homophobia and heterosexism. LGBTQ identity is stigma similar to “a criminal, or a traitor — a blemished person, ritually polluted, to be avoided, especially in public places,” (Goffman, 1963, p.11). Hair length; body and muscle composition; vocal pitch; body movement as well as clothing; all inform socially constructed images of public presentation, “enforcing an artificial binary of female = feminine versus male = masculine (Johnson & Lugg, 2011, p.233). Accordingly, these identifiers could also “refer to bodily signs designed to expose something unusual and bad about the moral status of the signifier,” such as skin tone or color (Goffman, 1963, p.11).

Institutional networks of power preserve and enforce socially constructed images of race, sexuality, gender presentation and identification, systemically ostracizing and punishing all those who do not conform. But this is also a selective strategy within networks, employed through education and social policy enactment, law enforcement and benefits or subsidy denial. In the United States, “people who have followed a heterosexual orientation have received numerous social, legal and fiscal rewards,” (Lugg,

2003, p.100). However, those marked “social deviants” are retributively identified, not only to receive punishment but also have what few privileges they do have taken. This includes a substantive education that could provide access to other means of power.

Deviants are cast out, live on the fringe (on the streets or in criminal the worlds) (Pitman,

2014), below the poverty line where distribution of income, education, power, and privilege does not reach them, and access is limited or cut off. “Identifiers,” distinguishing qualities created and manipulated “to meet the dynamic social, political,

and economic needs of our society,” (Brooks & Hebert, 2006, p.297) illustrate individuality for some but also categorize and complement attributes of normalcy or what sociologist Erving Goffman recognizes as stigma (1963).

Nomads: Severed Roots Unclaimed

A sense of loss surrounding visibility, belonging, and everything that accompanies African American membership is the root shock experience of identity for

LGBTQ students, distinctly experienced at the prestigious African American cultural institutions of historically Black colleges and universities. Here the African American community again attempts to differentiate itself mirroring, “‘I am not that’…in that sense

[of] becoming an American [is] based on an attitude: an exclusion…,” (Morrison, 1989 as cited by Bell, 2004, p.80); echoing “[White] America [in the] traditional fear and hatred of homosexuality,” (Hutchinson, 2008 as cited by Wilkins, 2012, p.15). Similarly, the real issue of homophobia, heterosexism and exclusion cloaked in prestige and competitiveness at HBCUs is a “routinization” of othering LGBTQ students as a spectacle next to normal “decent Black” folk presenting the “image of [the] undeserving blacks,” (Battle & Ashley, 2010, p.12). Uniquely taught by other Blacks, the “mis- education” commands students and faculty on how to dress, speak, behave, teach and learn. Attire, for example, and other presentations of “the HBCU image” (Meeks, 2003, p.1) originate not only from the social influence of the African American church but also an intrinsic segregation-era southern tradition of respectability, dictating rigid binary gender roles that HBCUs students are expected to obey. However, as Patton and

Simmons (2008) argue, respectability isn’t at issue but rather who best presents as such which in a “homophobic tendency to exclude gay and lesbian African Americans from

the Black community weakens the entire community,” (White, 2001 as cited by Patton and Simmons, 2008, p.199).

King (2010) and Patton and Simmons (2008) both describe experiences of gender nonconforming students attending prestigious HBCUs and expectations surrounding

“conventional modes of heterosexuality or normative gender expression,” (Reed &

Johnson, p.390, 2010) in “appropriate attire.” Dr. William Bynum, Jr., Vice President for

Student Affairs of Morehouse College at the time, expressed that despite the “respect

[for] the identity and choices of all young men at Morehouse,” there was a “leadership development model . . . [in] a certain standard of how we expect young men to dress,”

(King, 2010, p.2). However, Bynum’s later statement, specifically referring to “five students who are living a gay lifestyle that is leading them to dress in a way we do not expect in Morehouse Men,” (King, 2010, p.2), negates his earlier claim of respect for identity as these five students are clearly singled out for wearing high heels, make-up and carrying purses. Furthermore, that Morehouse attempts to enforce their attire policy “in an equitable manner” (p.3), does not follow if other students whose attire (sagging pants and du-rags), according to the policy, were also not in accord, but received no equal mention (2010, p.2).

Participants in Patton and Simmons (2008) study describe similar examples of an

“annual induction ceremony where female students were expected to wear a white dress,” and orientation events instructing “ladylike” behavior. Rather than feel uncomfortable several lesbian identified students opted instead not to attend (2008). But clothing is only a small part of larger barriers, stereotypes and discomfort. Some point out “the mystique” of single sex HBCUs dictating a “certain image in the community because of the fear of

being seen as a gay Black male school,” (Meeks, 2003, p.1) despite general knowledge of large LGBT populations on many of these campuses. Oakwood University, Norfolk State

University, Virginia Union University and Edward Waters College, all have behavior and dress code policies attributing to classroom conduct, academic achievement, and sexual behavior (Harper & Gasman, 2008). “The Hampton Man” and “The Hampton Woman” illustrate firm “traditional Southern values” where “men walk women home,” (Walker,

2007, para.25). “Characterized” as a “very heterosexual place, gay male students [are] not befriended by heterosexual males on campus,” and gay men are not included in men’s groups on campus (Harper & Gasman, 2008, p.343). This is in direct opposition to

Lemelle and Battle’s (2004) speculation of exposure to new experiences and people, a seminal experience in college. Rules prohibiting visitors to dorm rooms from sexual partners inevitably lead to discussions of lesbian sexual orientation and roommates; haphazardly conducted, students were presumed to be lesbian, and fear of questions about the sexual orientation of roommates prompted one student to leave the college when she discovered that her roommate was indeed gay (Patton & Simmons, 2008). In all, most codes of conduct at HBCUs deem homosexuality to be “sexual misconduct,” (Harper &

Gasman, 2008). Additionally, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund Report (2006) also disclosed student survey data with disturbing but recurrent observations of the mistreatment of both perceived and identified LGBT students in classes by faculty

(Harper & Gasman, 2008).

Later, a “rationalization” that Collins (2000) identifies performed in a Matrix of

Domination, justifies “violent political and [religious] rhetoric,” on HBCUs campuses, and in many African American faith based organizations, upon which HBCUs were

founded (Dixon, Jindasurat &Tobar, 2012, p.61). Unjust barriers to educational access and violent retribution behind the words of Reverend William Owens, then head of the

Coalition of African-American Pastors in Memphis, Tennessee and HBCU alum, are reasoned with, “They [administrators] can say ‘no’ [to campus inclusion of LGBTQ students] and I don’t think they have to give a lot of reasons,” (Walker, 2007, para.15).

Demands resulting in the prosecution of Florida A & M student Robert

Champion’s murder as a hate crime in 2012 (and calls for the dismissal of university officials found culpable in doing nothing to stop escalating violent behavior) would dispute Williams’ argument (Comer, 2012). In addition, according to Pritchard (2007), this “culture of hate [resulting] in someone being hurt or killed” worsens situations where

“HBCUs are already under-resourced and struggling financially,” (Pritchard, 2007, para.4). Numerous lawsuits and loss of government support are imminent if these schools do not make a conscious effort to change this culture, particularly as previously stated, the need for HBCUs continues to be questioned (Pritchard, 2007). The efforts of predominantly White institutions (PWIs) to create safe space on their campuses, for example, have been argued to have made progress that most historically Black colleges and universities have yet to begin (Pritchard, 2007; Walker, 2007; Strayhorn, Blakewood

& DeVita, 2008). In 2006, 75 PWIs included transgender students in non-discrimination policies, and that number has since grown to more than 400 with schools that include the

University of Wisconsin, Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, and the

University of Minnesota, (DuMerville, 2012).

Support and social groups on campuses like Virginia Tech were significant for

Black Gay students who felt safer to be more visible without fear at more liberal PWIs

(Walker, 2007). DuMerville (2012) and Walker (2007) link nationwide GLSEN (2010) documentation of over 4,000 GSA groups (four years ago), where thousands of those students are projected to be in current preparation to graduate high school and begin the college application and selection process. Those numbers are striking when estimating incoming freshmen classes, and “[those] youth will apply to colleges that can ensure their safety and will provide support,” (Walker, 2007, para.27). However, herein lies the detrimental trade off of sexual identity for cultural identity. Where participants in

Strayhorn, Blakewood and DeVita’s (2008) study felt more free to be open about their sexuality at predominantly White schools, it was clear this was at the expense of the more familial environment and relationships offered at historically Black colleges and universities.

For example, Cianciotto and Cahill (2003), Grant et al., (2011), and Peterson

(2013) all speculate on differences between White and African American transgender students’ experiences of harassment. As stated earlier, African American LGBTQ students of color experience multiple forms of violence due to their multiple identities, and though they suffer far worse school experiences, tended to demonstrate more confidence to be “out” and endure than White LGBTQ youth (Grant et al., 2011;

Cianciotto & Cahill, 2003; Mitchell & Means, 2014). But experiences of multiple forms of violence and harassment that includes racism is a significant factor, compared to White

LGBTQ youth, in disparate educational outcomes for LGBTQ youth of color (Peterson,

2013). Images of Aronson and Steele’s (1995) 13Stereotype Threat are a recurring theme as a result of the frequency of racist experiences and hearing racist language at schools

13 Aronson and Steele (1995) define Stereotype Threat is being at risk of confirming, as a self- characteristic, a negative stereotype about one’s social group.

where White students are the majority (Peterson, 2013). Researchers’ descriptions of experiences of Black men at PWIs range from “academic and social challenges” as well as feelings of “being under constant surveillance,” and behaviors indicating that White students felt afraid in their presence (Brown, 2006; Harper, 2009; Harper & Nichols,

2008; Strayhorn, 2008a as cited by Mitchell and Means, 2014, p.24).

African American gay and straight male students at PWIs relayed similar experiences of racism, yet according to Strayhorn, Blakewood and DeVita (2008), participants in their study, all young gay Black men growing up in predominantly White environments to attend PWIs, demonstrated more confidence and independence earlier referenced. However, also mentioned was, “a sense of ‘between-ness’, that is not being fully compatible with Black peers and cultural spaces (e.g., Black cultural centers) and not feeling fully ‘at home’ among White peers,” (Strayhorn, Blakewood & DeVita, 2008, p.100). Additionally, though they weren’t specifically aware of when or how they were

“betwixt and between” their blackness and a predominantly White environment they were more accustomed to, it was clear they had still chosen to attend a PWI rather than a historically Black college or university that would necessitate keeping their sexuality hidden (Strayhorn, Blakewood & DeVita, 2008). All felt more comfortable in social circles on campus that, “almost without exception, [referred] to White gay peers and reported having few Black gay friends,” and [when] they did report Black friends, most were Black heterosexual women,” (p.98). Understandably, PWIs may appear to be havens for these students who wanted schools that allowed for freedom to explore who they are and “avoid negative perceptions of homosexuality that often [plagues] Black communities,” (p.98).

More importantly, however was the lack of compatibility or cultural connection these students appeared to feel, where similar to their heterosexual counterparts, did not explore any new experiences of African American culture (cultural spaces), finding no interconnectedness even with other young gay Black men on campus. Additionally, that any friendships with African Americans tended to be largely with heterosexual Black women arguably points to Lemelle and Battle’s (2004) “masculinist identity [are] most important for distinguishing attitudes of African Americans toward gay [and straight] males,”(p.45). A culturally constructed identity of Black men, gay and straight, dictates what it does and does not mean to be a Black man, essentially cutting them off from one another (Mitchell & Means, 2014). Additionally, parallel to Lewis’ (2013) earlier observations, a dichotomy similarly between Black women also exists between Black men, cutting any possibility of dialogue and continuing division.

Nonetheless, young Black men, gay and straight alike, share (despite perceptions of nothing else) the damage from comparable threats of stereotypes (Harper & Gasman,

2008; Strayhorn, Blakewood & DeVita, 2008; Steele & Aronson, 1995). As Steele and

Aronson (1995) suggest, fear of attachment of stereotypes to a group of which one is a member negatively impacts academic performance. The result is outcomes of a general trend of low African American male college attendance and graduation rates.

Additionally, though many PWIs do offer safe space and support, Black gay men still experience “race- and class –based oppression,” (Pritchard, 2007, para.5) based on stereotypes, as well as cultural disassociation and homophobia (Strayhorn, Blakewood &

DeVita, 2008; Mitchell & Means, 2014). At HBCUs, however Mitchell and Means

(2014) indicate the added fear of “being stereotyped as flamboyant or weak,” for gay men

not seen as real Black men, (p.25), and the Institute of Medicine (2011) confirms this as

14internalized homophobia. Patton and Simmons (2008) and Patton (2011) also illustrated intersectional experiences of the multiple identities of Black gay and bisexual men, women and lesbians resulting in multiple forms of oppression similar to King (2010). The added stressors caused internal conflicts of either hiding their sexuality or eventually leaving school altogether (Patton, 2011; King, 2010; Harper & Gasman, 2008). The

“psychological ramifications . . . [of] dual minority statuses [leading] to negative moods and lower self-esteems,” (Mitchell & Means, 2014, p.25) surrounded challenges of assimilation, integration, separation, and marginalization that Mitchell and Means (2014) characterized as an experience of quadruple consciousness.

Although there is an established similarity in oppression and educational outcomes for Black men both gay and straight, opposition to any such comparison in the

African American community underscores and frames distinct disparities for LGBTQ youth of color that develop into barriers to substantive education, specifically in African

American educational institutions. The oppression unique to HBCUs and predominantly

Black secondary schools is the debate and notoriety surrounding the proven success in

“[offering] more supportive educational environments for Black students negated by

“efforts to educate [that] promote the ideology of respectability, without necessarily considering the experiences of students on their campuses who are gendered and sexualized because they do not conform to the university’s ideals of who their students should be,” (White, 2001 as cited by Patton and Simmons, 2008, p.199).

14 The Institute of Medicine (2011) refers to the emotional trauma of internalized homophobia as “an individual’s self-directed stigma, reflecting the adoption of society’s negative attitudes about homosexuality… which relates to the expectation that one will be rejected and discriminated against,” (p.20).

Research (Allen, 1991; Cheatham, Slaney & Coleman, 1990; Cokley, 1990;

DeSouza & Kuth, 1996; Kim, 2002; Outcalt & Skewes-Cox, 2002; Palmer & Gasman,

2008 as cited by Harper & Gasman, 2008) demonstrates the success of African American students at HBCUs “despite insufficiently prepared in K-12 schools,” (Harper & Gasman,

2008, p.337). Survival of psychosocial and economic challenges contributing to poor performance in high school classes and on college entrance exams is a key factor in the success of HBCUs (Minority News, 2011). More than understanding historically the role of pervasive racism in creating achievement gaps in education, HBCUs see perseverance of Black students to achieve in spite of barriers as assets and indicators of potential

(Minority News, 2011). However, assets to HBCUs are more than likely predictors of failure for “mainstream colleges” and thus basis to deny entry: “The majority [of Black students] would be unable to gain acceptance . . . let alone graduate,” (Minority News,

2011, para. 7). The cost is of attendance in addition to the “culture unfamiliar— sometimes hostile,” at PWIs is also a disadvantage (para. 7).

Though White universities make more efforts to be supportive of LGBTQ students than HBCUs, students of color continue to be ill prepared to compete with White students for freshmen seats, and struggle with other mitigating factors challenging their admission. HBCUs give students of color the opportunity to go to college that many

PWIs do not, however, though safer for and more supportive of Black college students, these institutions undoubtedly create an atmosphere where LGBTQ students of color are distinctly more visible and easy targets for harm and harassment by their peers, and unfair treatment by faculty and administration. According to GLSEN, “African

Americans [LGBTQ youth] are less likely to feel unsafe in schools where they are the

majority,” but “likely to feel unsafe because of their sexual orientation and gender expression,” (GLSEN, 2003, p.10).

Deciphering the Code of NEW Knowledge

Collins’ (2000) examination of the American University system exemplifies the power and privilege behind barring what curriculum is taught, what classes are taken and whose research to fund and publish. This is noteworthy as similarly the unspoken restrictions often imposed upon scholarship in the African American or historically Black college and university system are striking. “Sexism and racism never raise their ugly heads when certain kinds of knowledge are systemically excluded in the name of science and objectivity,” (pg. 8). Likewise, heterosexism and homophobia in the bureaucracy of

HBCUs, operate under a façade of “surveillance” enforcing strict codes of conduct and learning that further isolate its LGBT students.

Rather than instructing students to challenge and deconstruct theories, facilitating answers to questions , developing intellectual thought and dialogue, fear embedded in the

“conservative ethos of the HBCU” (Hill, 2006, para.6) continues to diminish research, study and learning. In spite of increased publicity focused on violence at HBCUs, and calls for enhanced “cultural competence and sensitivity” to confront bigoted campus cultures and encourage inclusiveness, Hill (2006) suggests HBCUs continue to fail “to remain on the cutting edge of intellectual production,” (Hill, 2006, para.5). Hill reveals a lack of:

African American Studies, Women’s Studies, or Queer Studies departments, [an]

absence of such intellectually vibrant spaces inevitably [forcing] many scholars,

whose training was largely informed by these disciplines, to remain in White

institutions. (para.6)

This seemingly not only affects enrollment, but arguably speaks to an acceptance of heterosexist and homophobic traditions; where unfortunately many students obtain a college degree but are no more socially or politically informed than when they first arrived (Fryer & Greenstone, 2010). “[Students] . . . taking less challenging courses from less distinguished faculty, have access to poorer resources, or are not investing in the social skills necessary to interact with diverse sets of people,” (Fryer & Greenstone,

2010, p.3), consequently are at a disadvantage for competitive positioning for employment opportunities.

The fixation with pathologized behavior and constructed identities continues to be the source of the organizational network of campus library research resources, and course and support offerings to students at HBCUs. The manipulation, implication and enforcement of rules and respectability place African American LGBTQ people and youth at the bottom rung and outer fringe of their cultural community hierarchy (Harper

& Gasman, 2008; Collins, 2008), aligning with a “hierarchical model of oppression”

(Myers, 2010, p.1). This is, according to Mays (1998), “the nature and determinants of social networks and assistance” (p.73) that continues to erase the LGBT existence from the Black experience. The growing gap in research speaking to Black LGBTQ issues, particularly at HBCUs, “[Unfortunately], [demonstrates] the connections between these efforts and campus diversity initiatives – especially in the area of student services,”

(Walter, 2005p.4). To remain relevant in curriculum and research, HBCUs, cannot ignore, as Walker (2007) states, that “[Society] is changing . . . [because] . . . [students]

aren’t coming [to school/college] experimenting with their sexuality, they’re coming here knowing,” (para.27). Walter (2005) concurs that scholarship must reflect this change:

To meet this measure, academic libraries (and librarians) committed to serving

faculty, staff, and students of color must move beyond collections and beyond

familiar liaison relationships with academic programs and departments to take

advantage of the full range of information and instructional service opportunities

that come with outreach to student service programs designed to support the

recruitment and retention of students who represent diverse and traditionally

underserved groups. (p.5)

Networks in higher education are a system of synergies, introducing students to a variety of academic, philosophical, ethical and political discourses within a campus community otherwise unattainable, postponed or avoided. The American Council on

Education (ACE) and American Association of University Professors (AAUP) (2000) states, “Students typically come to college without many of those [perspectives]. Whether they acquire them in college depends on the opportunities they have to address issues and build skills in heterogeneous groups, (ACE & AAUP, 2000, p.10). More than “promoting knowledge about diverse American cultures,” (Walter, 2005, p.1), higher education networks are opportunities to learn methods of engagement with a forum of new ideas in scholarship, and exercise approaches to circulate shared experiences to grow with larger society that does not have access.

Thus, a networked system of relationships beyond recruitment and retention for diversity, the structure of educational leaders, teacher-leaders, communities and cultural institutions, and the extent to which they exercise their powers, “[plays] a role in the

psychosocial development of students” and their scholarly success in college (Tomlinson

& Fassinger, 2003 as cited by Patton & Simmons, 2008, p.199). In particular, the mission of HBCUs is to be “community-based institutions that promote civic engagement and service learning; leaders in student engagement and educational attainment for low income, first generation, and disabled students,” (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

2010). For LGBTQ students to attend schools and be successful, HBCUs and secondary schools must also build networked improvement communities (Bryk, Gomez & Grunow,

2010).

Furthermore, networked improvement communities at HBCUs invites LGBTQ students to join and contribute to African American cultural and institutional research and learning networks. As Walter’s (2005) study indicates:

[Practice] related to providing services not only to students of color, [but] also to

a number of other groups of students who are typically included in any broadly-

conceived discussion of diversity on campus, including: first-generation students,

adult and returning students, and Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgendered (GLBT)

students (Instruction for Diverse Populations Committee, 2004; Neely & Lee-

Smeltzer 2001; Riggs &Tarin, 1994, as cited by Walter, 2005, p.2).

In an analysis of 34 public and 20 private four year HBCU library collections

(table 4.1) (excluding those that didn’t provide online public access catalogues), Willis

(2004) examined the amount, quality and relevance of collections lending to “intellectual value,” (p.34) in research. From 1993 to 2002, nine percent of public and seven percent of private schools carried the top 11 Stonewall Award titles compiled by the American

Library Association Gay, Lesbian, Transgender Round Table; frequency of these titles was zero percent for both (Willis, 2004). Particularly striking were monograph holdings,

with three private and one public HBCU having half the listed publications

Institution State Kwrd H Holdings available (2004). Where Willis (2004) notes Public Institution (by state)

Alabama State University AL 126 395321

University of the District of Columbia DC 285 544412 promise in at least one monograph available

Delaware State University DE 82 204127 Florida A&M University FL 333 705136 at all 54 public and private schools combined, Albany State University GA 90 338744 Savannah State University GA 79 186454 acknowledgement of the meager course Kentucky State University KY 73 296631 Grambling State University KY 108 305288 curriculum or research support from one of 30 Southern University A&M College LA 116 796304 Bowie State University MD 77 230833 Coppin State University MD 57 76458 in over 20 years of publication before his Morgan State University MD 109 305266 Maryland Eastern Shore MD 37 ? study yields little confidence now over 30 Alcorn State University MD 84 ? Jackson State University MS 150 ? years later (Willis, 2004). Mississippi Valley State University MS 53 131414 Harris-Stowe State College MO 75 94684 Nevertheless, a study of 54 HBCU Lincoln University MO 85 175696 Elizabeth City State NC 40 180951 Fayetteville State University NC 222 232468 libraries though dismal in African American North Carolina A&T University NC 150 483017 North Carolina Central NC 179 497249 LGBT collections and holdings, is not all 105 Winston-Salem State University NC 69 199234 Langston University OK 6 96760 campus library facilities (Willis, 2004), and Cheyney University PA 39 249593 Lincoln University of Pennsylvania PA 63 183898 10 years later, the development of "History South Carolina State University SC 100 275453 Tennessee State University TN 297 578086 Prairie View A&M University TX 291 314788 and Culture of Black LGBT” "History and Texas Southern University TX 76 259688 Norfolk State University VA 163 385390 Culture of Black LGBT" the first course of its Virginia State University VA 229 282422 Bluefield State College WV 163 84857 kind at an HBCU, entails continued study for West Virginia State WV 135 204081

Table 4.1: Hits returned on OPAC searches on improvement of library collections for research keyword “Homosexuality along with library’s reported holding from 2000 IPEDS and expansion. Building on Willis (2004), Ross

(2012) evaluated North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State (A & T) University’s

F.D. Bluford Library (a university “safe zone” on campus) LGBT collections and

holdings, focusing not only on amount, quality and relevance of the “library’s gay literature collection” (para.8); but also on internal (students) and external (other library patrons) customers, and one of three library goals “client-centered information services,”

(Ross, 2012, para.9). A survey instrument, focus group, interview with the Dean of

Library Service, and the Over the Rainbow reading list along with the Stonewall Award list Willis (2004) previously referenced provided a more in-depth assessment of the overall “cultural climate and effectiveness of providing an LGBTQ-friendly workplace and research environment for patrons,” (Ross, 2012, para.6). “Lesbian,” “gay,”

“bisexual,” and “transgender,” amended the key word search “homosexuality” (para.8).

In general, the results of Ross’s (2012) study further illustrates increased need for research and availability of African American LGBTQ content at HBCUs, facilitating continued study, learning, and consideration of its scholarly and political value to the struggle for equity, particularly in education. Contradictory survey answers and the reality of the library and campus as a whole discussed in the focus group further evidenced concerns about LGBT collections development, but hesitation to speak out or act (Ross, 2012). Staff survey responses were mixed with regard to any conflicts regarding LGBT concerns, but the one respondent to the open-ended questions reported derogative comments, and that “LGBTQ employees have not, generally, been encouraged to be out at Bluford,” (Ross, 2012, para.42). Consequently, 74% of students knew only 1-

2 LGBT staff (para.47), and 19% were similarly afraid or knew others afraid to be open about their identities while using the library (para.47). Additionally, one LGBT identified patron described an incident of harassment in the library. Relatedly 40% of students see the urgency of safe library space that 56% look to the library to provide (para.44). But

most compelling of Ross’s (2012) findings was the 82% of students who “did not personally know of someone who had benefited from having accessed/utilized Bluford

Library’s resources about the gay community,” (para.49) suggesting little to be gained or learned in LGBT research at Bluford Library.

Reflections in the interview, survey, and focus group essentially became

“meaningful structured [dialogue] designed to transform communities’ perceptions …into positive action,” (Santamaria, 2004, p.15) and thought. “[Most] student survey respondents did not feel Bluford Library hosted enough programming (classes or events) about the LGBTQ community,” (Ross, 2012, para.49), and 55% of staff concurred (para.

40). Misrepresentations and change though slow to move in lacking broad-spectrum cultural competency revealed students and staff both seemingly looking for interpretation, discussion and translation to shed light on future collections and library space endeavors. Additionally, Ross (2012) believed anonymity, where possible in her study, allowed more to raise need behind issues where few had before, to make clear

LGBT contributions important to “possible subversive potential, [to] reorient our respective fields to focus on the potential libratory aspects of deviance,” (Cohen, 2004, p.38); to make room for improvement. While most student respondents were neutral about LGBT collections at the library, 79% said they would encourage others to use

Bluford, but 75% of those specifically looking for LGBT content would not (Ross, 2012, para, 49).

Overall, students and staff, having had little exposure or full access to the LGBT

Black experience were unclear and unaware of the range of difficulties their classmates, colleagues and faculty faced, and the scope of the effects of a network of expectations

and ethos. From administration to Dean of Library Service to the campus community is a communal understanding of “what is” at Bluford communicating “what should be” in terms of inclusiveness and “assessing LGBTQ needs,” (Ross, 2012, para.39). Further,

Dean Coleman, though “unsure as to whether this was a culture issue; where students feel unsafe or lack the confidence to complain about issues like this” (Ross, 2012, para.34), when informed of Willis’s (2004) study, a demonstration of her leadership could model her words that [a LGBTQ subject area lacking in many HBCU libraries] “was an important area that libraries should not have a deficiency in,” (Ross, 2012, para.26).

In relaying collections development processes at North Carolina A & T that begin with faculty requests, her own independent inquiry could conclude that omissions of literature and research materials may be the result of focus, she later states, on a single discipline (Lewis & McDonald, 2002). If, according to Ross (2012), faculty at North

Carolina A & T can make purchasing recommendations for development, so too can the

Dean of Library Service, because in her leadership capacity, “[She] has the ability to be flexible with the budget,” (para.30); and as Coleman goes on to say, “nothing is specifically protected but [understanding] the budget for STEM materials are the closest to ‘protected’ status,” (para.34). As table 4.1 indicates, LGBT holdings have little consideration let alone protection.

As such, understanding that department faculty making all purchasing requests for research and course materials do not usually consult award lists to make selections points to the lists as a potential collaborative tool to use with librarians who have more knowledge of the “breadth and dearth” of materials omitted that award lists could inform

(Ross, 2012, para.31; Elzy & Lancaster, 1990 as cited by Lee & Freedman, 2010). Dean

Coleman’s statements and lack of action are called into question with data that supports the lack of LGBT materials (North Carolina A & T is listed as #21 with 0.0003101% of

LGBT hits on the chart in Willis’s (2004) study), and knowledge that students are afraid to make requests. Arguably, however, dodging the issue may likewise be due to fear, as little action is taken surrounding LGBT students in general until violence occurs. As a focus group participant shared, “it would take something that extreme for the university to make addressing LGBTQ [library collections] discrimination an official act,” (Ross,

2012, para.49).

Introducing: Black Queer Studies

Recognition in Black queer studies reconvenes suppressions of different genders in roles as a collection of performatives that (en)gender queer in blackness (Butler, 1993).

Different perspectives within existing dualities, identities, positionalities and oppressions

(Gasman & Hilton, 2012; Butler, 1993; Takacs, 2003); intersecting representations of its definition; voices that invoke “otherness” silenced by a mute African American studies are accounted for in Black queer studies. It is the creative process of “sensitizing framework” (Emirbayer & Goodwin, 1996) that interrogates blackness, introducing a motivating factor for deeper analysis of African American epistemology. An analytical starting point revealing the complexity of our lived experience, it likewise acknowledges the “complexity of racial identities” (McBride, 2005, p.87). Rewriting “blackness,” Black queer studies rewrites the African American experience to indicate possibility in an introduction to the idea of “queer” into everything that encompasses the multiple identities of blackness.

However, this new critical movement of improvement in 15intertextual counter- narratives does more than include LGBTQ African American authors initially unheard, ignored and forgotten (Kumashiro, 2001) in Black discourse. The performativity of Black queer studies surrounds naming that succeeds in growing Black queer visibility in the

African American experience, providing the opportunity for LGBTQ students, youth and people of color to enter the conversation to learn about themselves that normalized Black study has yet to attempt. Illustrating more than a possible deconstruction of African

American discourse in literature, Black queer studies is the evolution of redefinition; moving away from cultural constructs built on ideas of social justice focusing solely on racism to engage in work that systemically addresses all realms of marginalization and inequality (Erel et al., 2008).

Recovering and conserving visibility, identity, and memory lost in translation of intersecting representations of blackness compels study of (en)gendered Black queer roles for survival and autonomy. Escobar’s (2014) depiction of the “the Black dance aesthetic,” (p.7) as a “tradition [valorizing] the significance and interplay of ancestral diasporic continuities, cultural and critical consciousness, and lived experiences,” (p.7) is the work of “auto/body/graphy” safeguarding the Black dance body in American modern dance (2014). To “[refute] the colonialist project that denies Black people’s capacity for self-definition and self-identification,” (Escobar, 2014, p.7) the Black dance body “may enact or interact with speech” to not only tell, but also re-tell “its own story . . . of the

15 Intertextual/intertextuality is the complex inter-relationship between a text and other texts taken as basic to the creation or interpretation of the text (the original words of something written or printed, as opposed to a paraphrase, translation, revision, or condensation (4) theme, topic (5a) words of something set to music (b) matter chiefly in the form of words or symbols… Retrieved (from www.meriam- webster.com/dictionary/text) from www.meriam-webster.com/dictionary/intertextual)

collective through its blood memory,” (p.7-8). Similarly, Black queer studies highlights and establishes the presence and value of Black queer expressions.

Point of view is a powerful semiotic tool that institutionally structured, spread anxiety in racial loyalty, perceiving Black queer studies as a threat and betrayal of the Black body in orality; rather than a legacy handed down of another way in which the body may be read

(Kennedy, 2011; Escobar, 2014). Comparatively, the existentialism of LGBT Blacks, ostracized outside and away from the African American community; “[living] clean out in Plum Nelly,” meaning “gay beyond doubt” (Brody & McBride, 2000, p.286) is a familiar metaphor speaking of the intertextual images of misplacement in root shock (loss of community), and the relational “mazeway” (loss of home). The images are intertextual in their “perspectives [of] individuals, groups, or traditions and discourses [that] can manifest as both implicit (or taken for granted) and explicit (or reflected upon),”

(Gillespie & Cornish, 2009, p. 19-20).

Yet in an autobiographical approach, Black queer studies locates what Escobar

(2014) describes as “[the] etymology of . . . [auto/biography] . . . understood to be a self- written personal history, closely associated with memory, that also often re-tells or rewrites history as well,” (p.2-3). Removed and no longer able to return, we create “new homes” rather than wander about, dispersed and lost (Fullilove, 2005). Brody and

McBride (2000) “conceive a place [for] black queer studies” in African American discourse while examining and arguably mourning the semiotic loss of blackness as home for exiled LGBT Blacks. As a new method of scholarship and confrontation with structural and cultural violence enacted against Black LGBTQ people and youth, Black queer studies within African American “epistemological realities of how it is we know

[will] help us to re-member . . . [that] our lived experience and relationships to each other—and ideas—matter,” (Generett & Hicks, 2004, p.190).

Conceptually, African American understanding within the struggle against racism, begins the journey to an equivalent understanding of heterosexism and homophobia within the Black community, querying normalization of its privilege that reenacts and maintains oppression, marginalizing its LGBT people and youth (Kumashiro, 2001). For predominantly Black secondary schools, historically Black colleges and universities and faith based organizations, Black queer studies is inquiry into “race-centered understanding [of] blackness” introduced to fill in African American discourse “‘riddled with omissions,’” (Hemphill, 1992, as cited by McBride, 2005 pg. 69).

CHAPTER V: TRANSFORMATIVE BLACKNESS & LEADERSHIP IN TRAVERSING SPACE IN SEARCH OF BLACK QUEER COOL

Introduction

Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable

women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference -- those of

us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older -- know that

survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to stand alone, unpopular and

sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those others identified as

outside the structures in order to define and seek a world in which we can all

flourish… (p.10)

Those of us who stand outside that power often identify one way in which we are

different, and we assume that to be the primary cause of all oppression, forgetting

other distortions around difference, some of which we ourselves may be

practicing. (p.12)

--Audre Lorde

The popular film The Matrix (Silver, Wachowski, A. & Wachowski, L, 1999) comes to mind when I think about educational leaders and engaging predominantly Black secondary schools, historically Black academia, communities and the Black church in transformative agency surrounding LGBTQ youth of color. Early into the film, Neo is faced with a difficult decision. He is offered two pills. He can take the “red pill” and learn the truth about the world, or the “blue pill” and return to life in the “matrix,” a digitally constructed world of oppression, and forget he ever had a choice. He could continue to live his life, but always with a sense that something wasn’t right with the

world, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He had a job and a home. He could ignore his feeling. Neo opts for the red pill and the challenge to free humankind begins.

The Lived Experience of an Unexpected Case Study

From Brooklyn, NY to Pittsburgh, PA, across the Midwest and beyond, this work was my examination of my own root shock experience (Fullilove, 2005). Encounters with traditional, historical and African American cultural systems, and intersecting challenges to my multiple positions as an aspiring leader lesbian gender non-conforming Black woman in different locations and spaces. I had a meaningful career, a community of colleagues, students and neighbors of various other ethnicities and generations; living moderately comfortable in a tiny apartment in the most exciting city in the world. This all changed upon my relocation from Brooklyn, NY to negotiate one of the Whitest small cities in the nation, Pittsburgh, PA.

Fullilove’s (2005) concept of the root shock of urban renewal to Black communities is the way I came to conceptualize my experience once I arrived in

Pittsburgh, dictating my traversing of space and identities to navigate academia at the 12th most prestigious private Catholic institution in the country, Duquesne University.

Interestingly, I observed a sense of otherness not solely in the lack of diversity in

Pittsburgh, but also in the heterosexism and homophobia within the local Pittsburgh and campus African American communities. In addition, returning to a college classroom after 15 years, I struggled to relearn how to make the most practical use of time; to simultaneously complete assignments; juggling job hunting and later multiple jobs to support myself and pay expenses that my fellowship award could not sustain. It did not occur to me that after 15 years of combined work experience in secondary school and

college classrooms, curriculum design and non-profit program management that I would have no prospects of work. Not much of what actually happened occurred to me at the time I happily accepted a seat, “the red pill” in my cohort.

LIMITATIONS

Despite my race, sexuality, gender identity and presentation, and the experiences of oppression I describe from these multiple identities, they are not in the context of a formal predominantly Black higher education setting, nor are my higher education experiences in the context of predominantly Black educational settings. Furthermore, key to what I will later describe, many of the settings in Pittsburgh are predominantly White.

Consistent with my research, however it was for this reason that I sought out the African

American communities in Pittsburgh. Essentially, as I worked to complete this project, I came to understand that I was experiencing in Pittsburgh everything I found in my research, thus the motivation behind this idea. Additionally, in completing this work I understand that much remains uncovered and understood. Therefore, I anticipate moving forward with this project to initiate collection of data from Black educational leaders, on

Black cultural institutions and networks, to grow this work in impact and study of the longitudinal effects on the goals, outcomes and educational access of LGBTQ youth of color. The intersectionality I later discuss in my observations contribute to my eventual understanding.

A significant difference in class must also be noted. Despite my struggle to find work in Pittsburgh, my level of education gave me fortitude to continue the search for a job that eventually led to a better salary; though still part time work, temporary and overall low in income even with a second position provided through and funded by the

university. My education and the education I pursued also provided me a voice that many of those I describe, both LGBT identified and heterosexual, Black and White, did not always have the privilege to share. Recognizing my position and the relational impact of my privilege was a large part of my observation, discussion, and insights.

Finally, as this is my personal narrative, no one aside from myself was interviewed, and no other observations are included here except my own. As much as possible under the circumstances, I used documents, my interview with Queer and Brown in Steeltown (2012) and observations to confirm what I share. The point of this work was to use my experience as a portraiture example of LGBTQ youth of color experiences of oppression.

OBSERVATIONS

Race + Class

I leave the radio on like mothers leave the porch light on for their children, illuminating home because the light bill doesn’t care about the shooting just days before our arrival. My dearest friend, at one time my lover, and now every White freckled and funny Kentucky-New Yorker-accent part of her like a sister, Tammy wouldn’t budge on the phone until our new landlord had begrudgingly agreed to fix our porch light. Yes, in

New York they have street lights and porch lamps, Jack. She’d flown down to sign our lease, pay the security deposit and come back with news of our new landlord, Mr. Jack.

Well, it’s dangerous for women to come home to a dark door, Jack. He and his family had lived in this area until it had “changed” then moved out to the neighboring suburbs.

He owned two other houses on the block along with mine and three others in another neighborhood. Sure. How soon can you come by, Jack? It amazed me how many White people, unlike most Black people, immediately used each other’s first names no matter

their age or position of authority. I also found it funny that my sister-friend did it only when she didn’t like the owner of name. To me, however our landlord was “Mr. Jack”, though he wasn’t much older than me. It was one of many moments in Pittsburgh where my much younger than over 40 year old appearance served me when I had to smile politely or feign contrition at an error I hadn’t made; a taillight that wasn’t out; tinted windows that came with the truck I’d bought months earlier causing police attention and instructions yelled to roll down the windows NOW; making a Black gender nonconforming lesbian driver of an SUV with New York plates appear dangerous.

This is the beginning of power and privilege I relinquished when I arrived. I asked my sister-friend if she would handle the lease. Orientation at school was less than a month away, and much of my things still needed to be packed. I knew beforehand that I might not be able to rent a house on my own in 21st century Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

There was no time for uncomfortable questions, “look overs,” avoided voicemails, and later delayed untruths about the property being rented to somebody else. With the porch light repaired, Mr. Jack arrived this time to “investigate” Tammy’s messages about the mice, and his surprise at me pulling the screen down open was obvious. He came in, walked over to pictures on the wall for a closer look; remarked on the amount of books I owned. Smiled like clowns that make people afraid, then into the kitchen with me close behind. I’d found mouse droppings in the pantry and behind the stove. Up late writing,

I’d also see them run across the living room floor. At first he denied it, then a few droppings weren’t “a big deal.” Later in the week he arrived to fill in a hole the size of my foot by the mantle, and another fist sized hole in the floor. “Special” mouse traps from the hardware store needed to be put down, but my new and now third job made it

difficult for me to be home when he wanted to come by. My unreasonable schedule along with my offer to put the traps down myself, angered Mr. Jack. The traps “were” complicated, and only he could set them up. I explained, in my “teacher” tone (taken when I’m attempting to be polite rather than say what I’m really thinking), that though I wasn’t the most handy around a house certainly I could figure out how to set a mouse trap. My transgression became clear not much later.

The “class prejudice” Johnson (2005) describes had surfaced revealing my class status attached to my educational background and housing law knowledge (street wisdom from years of better apartment hunting in New York City). He became “Jack” when he tried to enter my house without notice or my presence. Racism required an explanation that yes though it is your house I pay rent here making this my residence. Jack’s increasingly thick “Pittsburgh-hese” despite his property holdings revealed his “yinzer” status, and the contempt he held for this odd looking Black person daring to tell him he couldn’t come into his own house. Most White people who’d been born and raised in

Pittsburgh had an accent affectionately known as “yinzer”. “O” sounded like “ah”

(downtown is “dawntawn.”). “A” sounded like “or” (wash is “worsh” and car is “coor”).

The English teacher in me especially hated the disappearing auxiliary verbs in Pittsburgh- ese; Ya’, headed dawntawn, my cor needs (to be) worshed. Jack’s sweaty red face and thicker “yinzer” Pittsburgh-hese confirmed my suspicions, and my skin color (among other things), despite my educational background confirmed what I would later learn; that

I was powerless to do or say much in his house. I live in Pittsburgh now.

Sexism required educating Jack about living in New York City as women; my sister-friend and I had had some scary incidents with strange men and our home, thus he

was not welcomed to enter at any time without permission. However, my attempts to reclaim any power I thought I had was trumped with “his house,” no matter the rent I paid. I was reminded often of this fact and that I was “allowed” to live there until it no longer mattered either way. We never said we wanted to renew the lease, so we were being evicted; Jack had left it in the mailbox the day I left for a weekend conference in

San Francisco.

Ironically, living in New York City nearly 20 years, I realize how sheltered a life I led. I had 24 hour protection that didn’t exist in Pittsburgh unless you knew someone. In the summertime the subway smelled like piss, and people threw chicken bones under the seats. Everything is expensive, and folks struggle to make their way. But Housing Courts took and investigated complaints; if I felt unsafe or harassed, I could call the police and they came ready to arrest perpetrators or mediate situations to decide how things would go down. Local government was visible, officials were everywhere, accessible, approachable. They were also Black, Latina, White, Asian and LGBT identified, able bodied and not, younger and older; representative of everybody who lived together at times not in harmony in the city. Some lived in your neighborhood and sometimes you knew them by name. I’d met Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, a stout

White guy with a voice that boomed friendly, and a thick Brooklyn accent that sounded exactly like the famous words on the sign crossing the bridge, into Brooklyn,

“fuggedaboutit.” He didn’t kiss babies, but wore Hawaiian shirts on hot days, and shook hands everywhere he went, “Call me Mawty!” I still have my “Brooklyn” pin, gifts to me and Tammy on a chance meeting with Mawty, leaving the diner one evening after work. I wear it as a tie pin on special occasions.

I leave the radio on because I like to return to voices, life, when I open the door to my dark house. Sometimes I’m afraid. With the close of each evening, I drive home from my second job at Rite Aid Pharmacy, noticing that by 10:30 pm, traffic lights flash to note the absence of traffic apart from a lone car compliantly slowing to approach an empty crosswalk. Lawrenceville, Pittsburgh, is asleep; the streets are empty save an elderly man straggling along in the shadows. Laden with dark bottomless potholes, dangerous to maneuver and traverse, geographically famed and symbolically framed as the single way in or out of town (Bolman & Deal, 1993 as cited by Bauer & Brazer,

2012). These solitary silent streets arouse and reflect feelings of emptiness and hopelessness. Dark, invisible me, I return from a day of work at three jobs and coursework to be completed. This is a kind of structural violence built into the composition of Pittsburgh, “the cause of the difference between the potential and the actual, between what could have been and what is,” (Galtung, 1969, p.168) in a city lauded as one of the “most livable” in the country (Levy, 2010). The inability and unwillingness of politicians and most Pittsburghers, White and Black, to acknowledge

“most livable” for whom, is tangible defacto racism, homophobia and heterosexism, unemployment and poverty disparities that go perpetually unaddressed. Deeply rooted and internalized tradition of structural violence in Pittsburgh; accepted and built from apathy (Haley, 2014).

Race + Culture

The black and yellow fabric of the Pittsburgh Steelers oddly enough is what unites a city of racially mixed neighborhoods segregated by streets. Haley (2014) remembers that Blacks in Pittsburgh had the vote, and schools were already desegregated,

so though it was well underway, the Civil Rights movement hadn’t arrived to Pittsburgh.

Protest was guarded, things went unsaid, and racism that segregated swimming pools and public housing, quietly accepted. Racism and segregation was more tradition than law. In contrast, New York, an ocean of different ethnicities and languages painting Brooklyn,

Queens, Manhattan, Bronx and Staten Island neighborhoods with faces of color where folks were and still are loud about inequities, is indicative of strength in numbers. In the midst of clear plurality, race and class segregation is real and understood. Entire neighborhoods were divided and risky to enter if you weren’t a “member.” The death of

Yusef Hawkins over 25 years ago (Blumenthal, 1989) still makes Black people rethink routes home on the subway or in a car. One block and a street sign turned left or right signifies you’re someplace, anyplace, every place where you don’t belong in Pittsburgh.

I soon discovered on campus, that homophobia and heterosexism in communities of color are a “quiet” internalized tradition too. I romanticized “New Negroes” Black and gay; fantasies of Hughes, Hurston, and Baldwin on top of a “bluff”; chapel bells ringing deep choruses scurrying students off to class. I saw Black brown-gold-green let loose the season of fall, and I marveled at joining these scholars. A Dead Poets Society (1989) of tweed jackets and pipe tobacco, leather satchels, and professors. Writers, debate, ideas, and theories that as a new doctoral student, prompted acceptance of an invitation to a

Black student association event from Dr. Hart. Eager to meet my new colleagues, I’d found his contact information, and wanted to make an appointment to visit the multicultural center on campus and its head of diversity in preparation for work in

Pittsburgh. As a student of social justice, I wanted to get involved, learn names and finally, amongst Black and Brown faces, find allies. Dr. Hart was friendly in our email

exchanges, inquired about where I was from, what school my program was in, and I was encouraged to meet him at the event.

A needle snatched from a record, scarred grooves in beats when I walk into the

“Africa” room. That’s how I imagined it. My naiveté imagined people excited to meet me, a new Black face, curious about me and where I was from, much like Dr. Hart had been in our email exchanges. It was weird and uncomfortable, the stares and looks up and down; what are you, I am not that, and that is not us. I was those brussel sprouts I picked over, with no intention of eating as a kid. What the heck is it? Pretending to be a cabbage, this tiny little green ball. People looked at me. Afraid. They walked by, putting extra distance between themselves and me when heading to the door where I was standing.

Don’t get too close now. Conversation died down as I walked to the buffet table for a small portion of salad and green beans, under surveillance. I stood off to the side watching Black scholars of various ages and shades mill about, shaking hands, kisses and hugs, happy to see each other. Then people walking by me double, triple takes, deftly avoiding crashing into tables, unable to look away; like the scariest part of horror movies.

You hide your eyes, brace yourself, but peek through fingers covering your eyes. I understood.

The music was turned back up. Cool lil’ jam. Ok, go ‘head Pittsburgh. I was gearing up to join a group of “sistahs” near the stage to introduce myself, ask about restaurants and places to hang out and shop. Before I arrived in Pittsburgh, I’d always been social, approaching people at events, chatting on the train, in clothing stores; stories about random conversations and meetings are part of the culture of New York City; structurally New Yorkers aren’t united by sports (ask a Yankee fan about the Mets and

see what happens). Ironically, New Yorkers are united by each other for better and for worse. The skyscrapers, clubs, neighborhoods all get their character from the people who come from all over to make their lives in this desperately beautiful place. After my first year in Pittsburgh, a friend I hadn’t seen in a while said I was different, that somehow

(over the phone?) I had changed. I couldn’t explain.

Hoping to tap Black Student Union resources to acclimate and hopefully get help finding work, I reached out a few more times to the director, Dr. Hart after my night at the Africa Room. Initially, I’d contacted him to ask about counseling, receiving an email about graduate student support, particularly for transplants. It wasn’t until I’d contacted him twice with no response that I remembered; I’d sent him my picture so he could find me at the event and say hello. Initial contact, open and friendly beforehand, became sudden cricket silence, confirming what I was starting to feel and understand at

Duquesne, in Pittsburgh. I invited smiles with my own, and after an awkward 15 minutes left quietly as I’d came, trying not to draw attention (ok, I know) to how stupid I must have looked standing alone in a corner smiling. I said good night to my first Pittsburgh social lesson. I was intruding on a secret club meeting, though invited, I wasn’t a member.

Race + Sexuality + Gender Identity & Presentation

Unpacked and settled in, I hadn’t seen another queer person for a while, and hadn’t socialized outside of my classmates for nearly a month. I was bouncing off the walls, and I wondered where the community, the Black queer communities, were. When I first arrived, I spent considerably more time searching for the African American queer community. Though I had dated White women before it came always with understanding

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of difference even if I tended to notice it more than they did, so interaction with women of color (WOC) was important. The one gay bar in Pittsburgh, The Blue Moon, looped video of hairy men, muscle men, older men, younger men and the male body in “part” and whole, celebrating the love of men. It also informed me that likely I wouldn’t find many women there on a regular basis. There was an older lady at the bar drinking a Coors

Light next to an ashtray filled with butts one night I ventured down. She stole glances at me drawing deep on a cigarette, so I looked her way and said hello. She had deep leathery tan skin, her hair was thin but styled, and she smiled showing some missing teeth and asked if I was “trans” (transgender) or a man. I’ve been mistaken for a guy a few times in New York, but no one had ever asked outright. I answered no, watched a few drunk couples stumble out, and left.

Through various social media sites I discovered a women’s beach party at a club outside of “dawntawn” Pittsburgh, and set out to meet some ladies. Sand had been brought in to simulate the beach atmosphere, giant speakers strategically placed blasted

“Black n’ Yellow,” from Pittsburgh native Wiz Khalifa. Small intimate candlelit tables dotted the sandy areas, and tiki torches were dancing in warm fall air more than the women. When I arrived at 11pm, I thought I must be early. Saturday nights in New York

City don’t “jump off” until at least midnight. $5 to enter, I saw the long winding bar to my left and headed over to get a drink. All the bartenders were blond bubbly White women, in short shorts and Steelers’ jerseys (must be a game tomorrow). Reminded me of the sorority women from my undergraduate days. I sat with a cocktail and checked out the scene.

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About 50 women shuffled about, six that I could see were Black, and the looks on their faces when we made eye contact made it clear, though I was queer, I was

“different.” My short close shaved Mohawk, skinny jeans and military hat, cool in New

York, was out of place in Pittsburgh. I was thinking about the difference between

Pittsburgh and New York City, something I’d later do often, when two women on my right came up to the bar to buy drinks, inconspicuously whispering loudly about me. One was round with a buzz haircut except for the perfectly styled wave of hair, hard gelled in place. She wore a white Polo shirt, the collar stood up crisp, and she reeked of men’s cologne. The other, thin and older, wore a sleeveless shirt, her hair blond, but black from the roots out with some blond still peeking out at the ends. Polo hair motioned at me, seeming to try to get her friend to talk to me. Roots black screwed up her face and shook her head. They got drinks and walked off. I finished mine and went home. In Pittsburgh, there were two major events for queer, bisexual and lesbian women; a cocktail hour and a dance party both sporadically happening once a month, sometimes every two months.

Seeking: African American, ages 29-48, some college, lesbian or queer identified, social awareness, athletic to average body, active and healthy. A friend back in Brooklyn told me I should give internet dating a shot. It may be a good (the only way) to meet other lesbian women of color in Pittsburgh, transplants from other cities who know anybody or didn’t like bars or dance clubs had tried it (but they were all in Brooklyn), and since there were no spaces to go to I thought I’d give it a try. Match.com and OkCupid, why not? I got three returns. Ok, open up a bit. College not mandatory 29-50. This time I got 10 returns! All but two were married to men looking to “experiment” and the other two were

“seeing somebody.” So there are no lesbians in Pittsburgh? When I changed the age

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range and racial selection 30 assorted pictures of women came up; from ages 21 to 48, all

were White except for the

original three Black women

from the first search. I had

taken the “red” pill, not

promised a fantasy world,

but rather the “real.” This

was my new community.

Constructs illustrated in Figure 5.1 Cultural Construct of Blackness figure 5.1 below, dictated

everything further compounded by how insular Pittsburgh is; there isn’t room for

anything or anybody new or different. In Pittsburgh, heteronormativity was the rule, so as

a lesbian identified woman, femininity meant attractive, date-able. Masculine presenting

women were not considered attractive, and androgynous women (like me) were

transgender or not “real” women. Online dating was the only way I would meet queer

women in Pittsburgh, finding much of the same as the few times I went out. As with any

place, beauty is constructed, women are told what they must look like in order to be

attractive, and being overweight is looked down upon. Ironically, beer, wings, Primanti

Brothers (what vegetarian food I could find was delicious but it will kill you), and pizza,

are all Pittsburgh staples. Few buses made transportation a nightmare, and the distance of

everything from grocery store to dry cleaners meant people drove everywhere.

Consequently, queer, bisexual and lesbian women in Pittsburgh over 30 are

largely overweight, and according to the Institute of Medicine (2011) obesity amongst

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lesbian communities, particularly lesbian women of color, is a growing problem.

“Academic life—the dissertation-writing, the teaching, the relentless CV-building—”

(Patton, 2014, para.4) make regular gym time and dating nearly impossible. Moving to a small area, culturally insular and not diverse, along with three jobs in addition to graduate school work, socializing isn’t part of that equation. According to Patton (2014) “women,

LGBT professors, and scholars of color who say they are naturally inclined toward more cosmopolitan settings,” (para.8) find socializing particularly difficult. “When you’re gay and single it’s like landing on Mars,” (para.12). New York lesbian spots are fashion shows (annoyingly at times) and “eye candy” people watching extravaganzas. Lesbian stereotypes don’t cover all of the stylish designer hip hop sneakers of every brand and label, punk prints and plaids, ripped t-shirts, neck scarves and ties; “shabby chic pseudo- hipsters” with “cool hair” and artsy urban dresses and skirts flowing bright colors, setting off vintage leather jackets and boots. Women of all walks of life from, attorneys, entrepreneurs, doctors, chefs, and models to social workers, laborers and teachers, the unemployed, students, single parents, stepped out to garner attention from an attractive potential date. Women, biked, did yoga, Pilates, and New Yorkers walk or bike everywhere. Restaurants, lectures, performance art, museums, concerts, bars, dance clubs, universities campuses with large vibrant LGBT cultures offer opportunities to meet other lesbian and queer women. There’s also WOC everywhere. Locs, afros, cornrows, weaves, bald heads. World music, dashikis, accents, Asian stand-up comedians, big earrings, and Spanish to Spanglish, and Southeast Asian poets. As with any place but particularly in New York, beauty is thin, but Black feminist “middle finger” to the man keeps athletic curves, thin and “thick” sexy bodies full figured and beautiful.

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I first arrived to Pittsburgh muscle mass fitness. A newly arrived vegetarian and advocate for healthy eating, finding salads served Pittsburgh style; laden with a healthy dose of French fries and cheese with a handful of lettuce at the bottom. Pittsburgh food is the enemy of a gender non-conforming lesbian with tattoos and muscles who isn’t dating material. A queer, Black, androgynous, woman or man, some-thing too bizarre to be a person. Despair, isolation, already health hazards, compounded by bad eating. A woman of color in the faculty locker room at the gym a week ago picked up her bags to leave and just as she walked off said, “Have a good day!” I felt like I’d found money on the ground.

Not a huge amount, but it is magic finding money isn’t it? Was I really that excited over someone speaking four words to me while I’m peeling off sweat socks? The cultural aspect of Pittsburgh openly tends more towards the “black ‘n yellow” of the Pittsburgh

Steelers than race. I wasn’t a respectable scholar on campus, and Black folks here did not carry militant hearts or minds, their “souls weren’t on ice,” (Cleaver, 1968).

Pretending to be invisible was how I survived; like playing hide and seek, or times I hid when I was afraid as a kid. In Pittsburgh I’m invisible because I am not woman enough, queer and Black. I’m here to become visible because I am a Black woman, queer aspiring leader, and this is my “process of becoming” Lyle (2009). This is moving through a series of steps, learning, recognizing and knowing things about myself

I never had to consider in Brooklyn. Being invisible means being silent, so I searched for a voice and presence in Pittsburgh in much the same way LGBTQ youth of color struggle to claim a space in their schools and be heard. But exposing all of who I am in an attempt to become more visible living in Pittsburgh, was harder than I thought. Here I face it with internalized “nobodiness” growing a healthy outsider.

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Race + Class + Culture + Sexuality + Gender Identity & Presentation

New residents of the neighborhood, we stood out, and our new neighbors noticed.

We learned quickly how things are here: 1) Parking. We’d parked our truck and moving van in front of our neighbor’s house, forgiven for it this time. We’d also been warned. In

Pittsburgh, though not legally enforced, public streets in front of homes are the private parking spaces of the owners. I thought it was a joke when I was told residents actually place lawn chairs in the spaces to inform drivers that these parking spaces are off limits.

A friend of mine said she’d tried that once in Columbus, OH and found a homeless gentleman sitting in the chair when she got home. He thanked her for the chair and headed on his way. Most of the homeowners on the street had lived there all their lives, and this was another “tradition” of how things were done, another mistake made in the process of learning.

Driving to campus to work, I notice that people watch me roll by. Surveillance was powerful, relational, positional and mobile (Dixon, Jindasurat & Tobar, 2012;

Cohen, 2004; Collins, 2008). A quick glance in the side view mirrors, yep still watching.

The music on my car stereo was too loud? I blasted Erykah Badu all music, filling silence with a soundtrack that signified I was alive. That morning Tribe Called Quest and I hung out for a minute. Q-tip told a story about chasing girls in Brooklyn, and before he could finish I was “dawntawn.” A Black dude smoking a cigarette watched me pull up and park. His right eyebrow lifted like animals lift their ears or heads, hearing something unfamiliar and dangerous. I grabbed my gym back and briefcase and prepared for the hike to campus.

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That day in August I was setting up the grill in the back when a young woman came out of the back door of the house next door on the other side of mine. She introduced herself, asked about New York after noticing the plates on my truck, and offered to collect the mail whenever we went back. Listening to the conversation for about 10 minutes, I noticed that all of her friendly chatter and questions had been directed at my then girlfriend. The neighbor faced my girlfriend, concentrated on my girlfriend’s face. Reminded me of the Greek myth about Medusa. Brave souls who entered her lair beware; one look at Medusa, the sight of her turned you into stone. Clearly my neighbor believed my girlfriend was her new neighbor, shook her hand and smiled but hadn’t looked in my direction since coming out of her door. A hand had not been offered to me in that awkward way when you meet a group, and one person is standing there with the new friend waiting for introductions. My girlfriend was White, had long hair, and that day wore a long sun dress that set off her glasses with stylish green frame. She’s friendly, talkative, introduced me finally, and it was the moment I’d been waiting for. Maybe my new neighbor and I would be great friends; coffee outside on the front steps of our houses, borrowing sugar. “Oh, hi.” I watched her smile literally, deliberately, slowly disappear when my girlfriend explained. I was the new resident, and she was just visiting.

I saw it in slow motion as though there was something happening that I needed to be certain not to miss. She shook my hand loosely, not fully taking my hand, and with a quick good-bye ran back inside her house.

As a new resident of now seven months, I learn to adapt like I did in New York.

In Pittsburgh I do not fear and confront streets at times brutal for a woman out late at night and alone as in my past experience. I now face outward and at times unapologetic

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vocal responses of perceptions lacking femininity. “What the FUCK are you?!” Yelled out of passing cars like a hello. Sometimes I walked home from Rite Aid for the exercise but decided to stop. The “parking war” has also begun, the neighbors to the left of my house park their car leaving little space to park my truck; I’ve noticed that the “e” in New

York on my bumper license plate has a dent. When I knock and ask if they can move back, “Why don’t you just park across the street? Your vehicle is massive.” Having a truck helped me get here, but I take up too much space. I try to explain that parking in front of my house, like I thought we could, is a shorter distance to walk my overstuffed gym bag, heavy briefcase and three bags of groceries to my door every day, hoped for understanding. Tammy came to visit when I explained, and went next door with a pie.

Shook hands, and with Kentucky charm explained that she was my roommate, and wondered if “y’all wouldn’t mind moving your car up a bit so I can unload my equipment. It’s lil’ tight. I’m a photographer.” I listened at the door, warned her. I didn’t want to make things worse. The boyfriend of my neighbor couple apologized. He explained that they’d never had this problem living in the Southside (where finding parking is a full time job with no benefits). Tammy thanked them, and explained that we’d never had a problem either living in Brooklyn. I was struck at how she was able to demonstrate how a small problem could be resolved with friendly banter and pastry. A week after Tammy left to hit the road for her studio, the young woman parks her car too close, and I open my door into a tree. Now when I knock my neighbors don’t answer the door, and my truck sits front or back end in the street.

My neighbors on the right are a family. The matriarch, Ms. Patty, spoke loudly and quickly, her Pittsburgh-ese blurred and smeared. I’m sure she wasn’t drunk when we

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ran into each other outside; wasn’t sure of much else except for the security camera above her door, and traffic in and out of her house. Once I’d arrived home to discover a huge truck parked in front of my house, a couple of motorcycles, and cars lined the street.

“Traditional law” of parking clearly broken, but I never complained to them. Through paper thin walls I heard the jokes and laughter, me and my big truck looking for a place to park. “Shit happens.” I also heard the horrible fights. “Fucking pig” isn’t something anybody would miss or mess with. I thought about calling the police. I’d called them when I noticed the dent on my truck, and they’d laughed.

Halloween houses now decorated with ghosts and witches, costumed kids roamed the neighborhood, knocking on doors for treats. Coming home from work later that night than usual I saw the pieces of shell at the steps. I’m used to trash on the streets, but the small pile of toilet tissue caked with brown at the top of my porch stairs said this wasn’t regular trash. Walking up stairs the smell was familiar. More egg shells sprinkled on top, yolk nearly dried on the walls under the window. I stepped over the Halloween gift on my porch to unlock my door and went inside. I’d hear stories of surviving Halloween in

New York. The village parade, crazy costumes and parties. Kids threw eggs in innocent havoc, but we always dismissed school early on Halloween. Walking to the grocery store the next morning, Ms. Patty’s son was closing the door headed to work. Looked just like his mother, thin, bad skin, glasses. He called out good morning, and for a split second I saw the scary clown smile. I also noticed no other houses had egg or “trash” out front. An old man stood on his porch, watching me walk by. I asked if he’d seen any eggs on his house. “No, people are pigs.”

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On my way to Rite Aid, I saw Ms. Patty with a black eye, and my image of her changed. I hated her and her whole family. Yinzers similar to Johnson’s (2008) “po’ white trash” when he had moved to Louisiana to begin his teaching career. She often looked emaciated to the point of starvation; the black and blue marks under her eye surrounded her nose. She looked up smiled her hello and went back inside, closing her door softly. Ms. Patty always says hello now. Came into Rite Aid and blinked surprised.

“Hey, T!” Yep, I work here. But neither of us is the other’s ideal neighbor.

Race + Culture + Class + Sexuality + Gender Identity & Presentation = I Have Landed. Take Me to Your Leader

Waking up at 5:45am every morning, I do my best to get to the gym early. The gym floor is much less crowded with college kids still deep in sleep. By 6:30am I’m in the locker room, change quickly, close and click the lock on my locker and for 90 minutes I am in bliss. New York City “house” music on the treadmill booms out memories of the clubs, my body on the dance floor. It’s dark, smoke floating the floor, an effect the club uses to stir the air and dancers out of their chairs and onto the floor. In a sea of bodies I close my eyes and move, bounce off beats and pulse power. “What up,

NEW YORK!” I’m free! On the weights Missy Elliot blasts to me: “What’s up, star, you know who ya are!” It’s a “Private Party” with me, India Arie, my body, and sweat rolling down my cheeks and arms. My muscles, tight under tattoos, relent to motions, pull the weight up and back. I am a powerful Black goddess with shield and spear, battling Jack.

My Nike tennis shoes and track pants melt away in sweat, transformed into traditional

African costume, my body is painted golden Black, Mohawk fierce, says my Drag Queen sistah. I feel response to calls of drums-- the gym is filling up. I move to the mats to stretch, get water then head back to the locker room to change. In the shower I feel like

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“sangin’” 16Shug Avery style. I remember sitting with Ms. Alice, every bit my friend as much as my mother. “Us laugh and us sing!” (Walker, 1982). Remember the tim-

Overhearing two women talking while they changed, brought me back to the locker room. I finish my shower and almost fully dressed at 9:15am, pulling on slacks and gathering up my shower gear in ribbed tank top. Mohawk, exposed muscles, tattoos, pierced nose, Black, queer, I do my best for 30 awkward minutes to blend in with white bathroom tiles. An older White woman enters the locker room. She actually looked like an older lesbian I’d seen at a Pittsburgh women’s event once. Watching her face change from surprise to fear bordering on revulsion was weird, like watching a chef knead dough, the shape of mass in metamorphosis changes to the next. Looking at her face I imagine what was going on in her head. The hair on my back and hands must’ve been unruly and dark, more visible on my knuckles as they dragged the locker room floor. My fangs were particularly vicious looking that morning as she eyed me horrified, like a small animal recognizing its final days. She was a round woman with dark brown hair, her aged face revealing that she dyes her hair regularly. She wore glasses and efficient lipstick, not too obvious, softened her face, and displayed her femininity. She had probably looked different before five boys, a husband she’d married 30 years ago straight out of high school; meatloaf Monday night dinners after football practices, before

Monday night Steelers games.

She’d arrived to begin working out, maybe a New Year’s resolution to lose weight; innocently stepping into the carpeted locker room area and the shock at what she

16 In Walker’s (1982) The Color Purple, Shug Avery is an infamous juke joint singer and promiscuous sinner shame of her family. Originally Mister’s lover, later becoming Ms. Celie’s in addition to confidante and friend.

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saw. Me, slacks pulled up but open! She was fully clothed in “mom jeans” and new sneakers, but raised the fresh towel she’d brought with her to shower after her work out slowly to her chin. The towel was her shield, covering herself, backing away slowly, her eyes never leaving mine. Two other ladies interrupting my memories earlier were deep in discussion about organic peanut butter while “Auntie Em” and I faced off at 9:30am high.

Only when she stumbled back onto the tiled floor toward the showers, careful not to get too close to me, was it safe to turn away and dash into a stall where she would change her clothes. Would this person…… follow me into the showers?!

Yanking the curtain closed, nearly tearing it from the rings.

I looked different from their concept of what belonged in the women’s, faculty and staff locker room; my Nike track pants as opposed to shortie shorts with “Duquesne” or Greek lettering across the rear. A commercial made me want to “Just Do It!” I wanted to be like the female athletes throwing, jumping, catching, shooting, sweating “like girls” in the slogan. The ones I had on that day had belonged to my mother. I would have to be careful, reminding myself that this was not Brooklyn, and that accusatory eyes could become questions about my presence in a locker room that normally I had to myself. But

I guessed from the previous experience when a woman had hid in a bathroom stall waiting for my exit that they were more afraid than I.

Fear is a funny thing. Walking home in the early morning hours out with friends in New York City rather than a locker room at this largely White and Catholic University.

My gender presentation is a source of discomfort for women who happen upon a dark skinned Black person who appears to them as male. Conversations of adventures to the local food coop, is a deft disguise for discomfort in this immaculately clean and carpeted

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locker room; like whistling in a haunted house, pretending dark hallways and shadows aren’t scary. Reserved for university faculty and staff, professors of philosophy, literature, education, law and science shower and change here. But there is also the

Pittsburgh community, largely White women ranging in age from late 40s to 60s, members of the staff. On occasion there is a lone woman of color and I think for a second

I have an ally; prepare to smile and say hello, same icy silence and direct avoidance of eye contact. I realized these women of color didn’t identify with me any more than the others who choose to either leave half-dressed, or not change at all, quickly exiting to the bathroom stalls for safety in solitude of their own. One woman snatched up her bag and purse so quickly after I’d arrived to change that she left a brand new IPhone on the bench.

Dazzling technology, white and blinking. Maybe I could catch her and... I headed for the shower. The phone was gone when I came back.

Employment in Pittsburgh, PA: Rite Aid Pharmacy

I was close to out of money when I got lucky. I was persistent and called daily to follow up on my application for a “stockboi” and cashier position at Rite Aid Pharmacy.

Under employment starting wage is $7.65 an hour. A staff of six to eight worked in the pharmacy, and during my year and half between 10 to 15 employees worked the cash register, pulled product from storage to stock shelves, unloaded (a three am delivery via tractor trailer in rain, snow and heat) of new merchandise every week to store in space freed as we moved product out to the floor. Ages of staff varied; 17 year old high school students to two older adults (1 retired but working). One of the younger employees had been there two years after leaving school, given the choice to finish at home or online, now struggling to finish the online program approaching 18. The other younger employee

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left after the first day, due to stress, struggling with a disability. One of the older employees was a supervisor and made the highest salary next to the store manager at $10.

After a year, encouraged to apply for a promotion, I considered being a supervisor. The pay increase would be a big help, and I’d have the added responsibility of ordering product and cash management; closing the registers at the end of the shift, making change when needed. But newly hired supervisors don’t begin at $10 but at

$8.65, gradually working up. The manager wasn’t sure when I’d get to $10, but the increase in hours would be immediate (up to 10-15 in addition to my current schedule between 30-50 hours to make nearly $300 in salary bi-weekly). The increase in hours would make completing assignments difficult, but the increase in theft and robberies at neighboring stores and a nearby gas station frightened and convinced me to forgo the promotion. “In 2011, 10% of low-wage earners had a college degrees,” (National Black

Justice Coalition, Human Rights Campaign, Freedom to Work, Center for American

Progress, & Movement Advancement Project, 2013, p.43). In another 4 months I had three jobs.

In March of 2013 I was fired from Rite Aid. On my way out of the store a customer with a history of difficult behavior came in demanding I “move out of her way.” Carrying a computer bag, my backpack, books, uniform and shoes, and training material for a new job; exhausted after a 12 hour shift and heading to a meeting for my third job, I responded. Her threats to kill/stab me/cut my throat, the shouts of “fucking dyke” and “fucking muff diver,” the jerking movements of her body as she hiked up her dress shouting “You know you want this” in the parking lot all seemed surreal; I was Neo again, dodging bullets. The yelling turned a few heads but like most Pittsburgh traditions

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were accepted as customers headed into the store; it was after all just another escalating physical altercation between two Black women. I however, was in a fog through the whole occurrence. Even after calling the police and their jokes about “not kicking her

(the angry customer’s) ass” I wasn’t clear on what had happened. I do know returning to the store three days later, clocking in and heading to the back room to change, I was stopped by the store manager and told I had been fired. The customer, who later (I was informed) had been arrested for attacking someone with a knife, had called into the store to complain about my attitude. If I had any questions I could call for an explanation, and three messages asking and no response later I stopped calling. According to Hasenbush and Mallory (2013) Pennsylvania has little to no workplace discrimination law in place, leaving “174,000 LGBT workers [are] vulnerable to employment discrimination absent state or federal legal protections,” (p.1). This is a real problem for LGBT workers here, and certainly for those of color. But I didn’t report it.

Christmas and Mother’s Day were the worst. Like old houses in Hazelwood, empty, folding in against the cold, waiting to be replaced by new condos and hotels; or forgotten and left to deteriorate. Her pictures, her favorite shirts and scarves, her perfumes and cigars. Her music, my own voice and hands, made me remember. I found her message, packing away her things to shut the house down. It told me how she struggled sometimes too, but somehow things work out:

Many thoughts are running through my head and it’s alright

Wishing to be somewhere else but here and it’s…

Sometimes the rain, it makes me sad, but it’s alright…

Some things in the world, they make me mad and it’s alright

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In the morning when I see the sun, I know I’m not the only one and it’s alright

Wish I had some money to pay my bills, I can’t even buy that dress on sale but it’s

alright

Life can bring us through many changes it’s alright

Just don’t give up know that it’s alright

People come and they go

It’s just the way that it goes

Everything is everything it’s alright

(Ledisi, 2007, Alright, track 5)

Everything is everything, Tip, so “pray on just a little while longer,” (Sounds of

Blackness, 1994, Hold on Just a Little While Longer track 5). Playful smile, always looked like a laugh coming she could barely hold in. She had a youthful leisure; no one would ever guess that she was approaching 60 but for the silver in her locks. That’s where I get it from. Eyebrows two small perfect arches in the shape of hurry up and take this picture but get me right! You can see her easy presence that people were drawn to; she was charmed by people. She had a generous smile, elegant and open. Everything about her invited you to sit for a minute and laugh because, you know, that’s how it goes.

Everything is everything. Then she was gone again. I was alone again.

INSIGHTS

Intersectional Overlap: The Most Livable City? For Who?

Though I divided my observations into sections (or tried to) I found that it was impossible to discuss my experience of race without also discussing my sexuality, gender identity, presentation, or class. None of my identities were mutually exclusive of each

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other. Therefore my experiences of class overlapped with racialized interaction, an added layer of sexuality, topped off with a splash of gender presentation. Everything that took place somehow connected to how people perceived my identities or completely disregarded them, and how I reacted, later learning how to respond.

In 2011, the year I moved to

Pittsburgh, Forbes Magazine listed

Pittsburgh as one of the most “livable

places” in the U.S. (Levy, 2010).

Rebounding from the loss of its major

source of prosperity (the steel

industry), Pittsburgh boasts, despite a

struggling economy, that here it is still Table 5.1 possible to own a home. Additionally, vast job opportunities contribute to the “Pittsburgh Promise” of possibilities; as with college scholarship funds offered to Pittsburgh Public School (PPS) students. There is a buzz of relocation to Pittsburgh streets paved with gold and budding careers. Ethnically open, Pittsburgh also claims a diverse population with a “great cultural scene” (Rothstein,

2011). Refuting Forbes’ suppositions, Rothstein (2011) states, “It would be hard for any metropolitan area to be whiter than Pittsburgh.” (para.1). Table 5.1 Compares similar small metropolitan hubs in the U.S. also experiencing growth but not equal to the success of Pittsburgh. Levy’s (2010) article is a stark falsehood to those for whom Pittsburgh hasn’t been most livable for many years. Because Pittsburgh is in actuality a predominantly White city, it is only most “livable” for those already fortunate enough to

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take advantage of what it offers. Both those who relocate with high hopes and expectations, and those who’ve been here much of their lives find they are similarly struggling, discovering promises that are empty at best, with little set to change.

The sheer size of the White population has a domino effect in structural damage for mostly people of color and accordingly LGBT people and youth of color. The apathy

Haley (2014) referred to speaks to a sense of lethargy in Pittsburgh. Largely, Black people I spoke to seemed unaware, silent or indifferent to the race and class issues of

Pittsburgh, having no sense that the White population is as big as the 2010 census clearly indicates. “Tradition” continues in terms of segregation, but the divisions are more along class lines rather than racial ones. In Lawrenceville for example, Black and White families live next door to one another, all largely poor to working class. Similar class divisions across racial boundaries resulting in racially mixed neighborhoods also increases the likelihood of interracial dating. The Center on Race and Social Problems

(2007) states that multiracial children comprise about 4% of the child population in the

U.S. but 3.1% in Pittsburgh alone (CRSP, 2007). However, Pittsburgh is far from diverse, and the unknown can make anybody afraid. Having never lived in a place as an adult that wasn’t largely Black until I’d gone away to college, the uninhibited homophobic and racist behavior, and the glaring ratio of Black people (8:100) far outnumbered by Whites, horrified me.

Yet in my fear I didn’t consider that White people in Pittsburgh were also afraid of me, but even more so merely curious. Certainly perceiving my body shape, muscle mass and haircut as Black and male, racialized me as dangerous. But the Center on Race and Social Problems (2007) reports that despite an “unusually large White population”

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(Rothstein, 2011), having “90% of the aggregate income” (p.48), Whites have little to no educational attainment beyond high school (CRSP, 2007). Things have definitely changed since Haley’s (2014) day of desegregated predominantly White Pittsburgh

Public Schools (PPS). Pittsburgh Public Schools are now largely African American while a majority of Whites attend private or suburban schools that tend to have more resources

(Cianciotto & Cahill, 2003; Carey, 2005; Karoly, 2004; Barton, 2003 as cited by Gorski,

2008; National Black Justice Coalition, Human Rights Campaign, Freedom to Work,

Center for American Progress, & Movement Advancement Project, 2013).

Though Whites in Pittsburgh, particularly in the mostly Black PPS system (CRSP,

2007), account for most high school degrees conferred, they still “have a higher rate of not having a high school degree than Whites in the nation,” (p.32), and incredibly only

16% of Pittsburgh’s White population has completed college (2007). Based on the

National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement (2012), college is where students are exposed to classmates of diverse racial and ethnic, sexuality backgrounds, and social challenges; where they learn and debate new ideas. But if

Pittsburgh is mostly White, and Whites are barely finishing high school and not going to college, then it stands to reason that they have little to no opportunity to learn about anyone or anything that isn’t White, heterosexual and male.

As is standard nationwide, Pittsburgh African American students fare far worse.

PPS (2012) reports 58% of Black students graduating from high school, but Niederberger

(2012) suggests that with only 39% of graduates having the required 2.5 or higher GPA for Pittsburgh Promise eligibility; the achievement gap, once showing signs of closing, now seems to be growing (Niederberger, 2012). Moreover, African American students

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can’t count on a Pittsburgh “promise” for college funding because PPS schools aren’t able to get them to graduation, let alone with the required GPA. As a result, a wider achievement gap predicts gaps elsewhere, clearly demonstrated by the quality of life of

African American Pittsburgh natives. “The gap in homeownership among the races is wide,” (Fraser, 2013, para.22) where Blacks account for half the rate of Whites at 36% homeownership (2013).

Homeownership isn’t affordable without a livable wage, and with nothing more than a high school diploma, better paying jobs are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain. “African Americans living in Pittsburgh MSA stood at 14.1 percent unemployed,”

(2013), concurrent with the A Broken Bargain for LGBT Workers of Color report (2013).

With little education, underemployed thus underpaid, jobs Black people are able to secure are largely in the service or (retail) sales industries (CRSP, 2007). And as I discovered over nearly three and a half years in Pittsburgh, increased educational attainment meant little in my job hunt. “[In] 2011…the percent of low-wage earners with a college degree nearly doubled… [and] 10% of low-wage earners had a college degree,” (National Black

Justice Coalition, Human Rights Campaign, Freedom to Work, Center for American

Progress, & Movement Advancement Project, 2013, p.43).

Finding and keeping a job is even more difficult without a car. African Americans in Pittsburgh depend on public transportation four times as much at “[more] than 37 percent” (Fraser, 2012, para.30) than other groups at 8 percent (2013). This would explain the strange looks whenever I drove around the city to work or school, and likely being pulled over by the police. Despite juggling three jobs to meet my own cost of living, in addition to my educational background and pursuits, having a car was a sign of

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my status changed little by income. My gender presentation probably confused people even more, wondering how a bizarre looking “fellow” like me would be able to afford such an awesome truck over 12 years old. Such thoughts may have also crossed the officer’s mind as he ran my license and registration finding nothing. Overall, a city with

“the highest poverty rate among working-age African Americans of the 40 largest regions in the country,” (Schmitt, 2013, para.24), claims to be the “most livable” are far removed from reality.

Identity Explosion: “Dr. Wilkins” and Mr./Ms. Queer

Even as I struggled with unemployment, low income, racism, homophobia, I traversed spaces to find allies, comrades, home. The different communities of color in

Pittsburgh shared characteristics of displacement-root shock. Reading the accounts of other “newcomers” to Pittsburgh from Los Angeles, Atlanta, Philadelphia and

Washington DC, the similarities were clear. The Nigerian brotha, stopped for running a stop sign; his traditional garb ridiculed by the officers ordering him out of his car; unable to explain upon inquiry, where exactly he’d run this sign and why they hadn’t stopped him then (Schmitt, 2013). The sistah efficiently running the branch of a Pittsburgh bank,

“nigger” spat in her face by a customer. She felt sorry for the customer, but I did not. I was angry at being called “it.”

My anger grew as people made fun of my clothes. Black lesbians initially curious then later I’d hear about events for Black women I wasn’t invited to. Shunned by the

Black community when I poked my head out for an evening seeking some sort of solidarity; those I’d met and hung out with who later seemed not to know me. When co- workers spoke down to me, and others defended them, consequently diminishing my

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experience to “over-reacting” as though I was making it all up. Expectations to be better, challenges to model a leader; “a pioneer” and “a change agent” made possible by being in

Pittsburgh (Schmitt, 2013, para.9); seeing the personal narratives behind people, particularly when knowing most would not do the same for me. The sistah who “liked it here,” and her funky ole “network of friends,” (para.11) who’d helped her “let go a little of the old place” (para.11) to acclimate here. I didn’t care if she was right because I was angry at Pittsburgh. This isn’t Brooklyn and never could be. I had begun to “other”

Pittsburgh just as it had me.

I don’t know when it happened, but underemployment at Rite Aid became my place of solace; where I had allies, people who cared about me, spent time with me outside of work. Ms. Mary Ellen who bought me a Rite Aid yogurt when I looked sad or hungry; Jen and Darlene with “yinzer” jokes to cheer me up, running product from trailer to shelf, and karaoke Friday nights with $3 beer; Dayna’s budding film career and move to California. Also customers with greasy stringy hair, bloody feet, dirty clothes, and children to match trailing after them; who before threw money and to whom I was sub- human, remembered my name. They noticed when I was away from work for school. I’d become “Tiff” and it struck me that first time sitting outside with “Gramps,” an old White dude who came in every day to buy Turner’s Iced Tea; both his hands shook digging around for money or his EBT card, and he couldn’t unsnarl his fingers. He sat outside with me by the Rite Aid dumpsters, bummed a cigarette, and told me about the prettiest fishing hole in the county, scratching stubble and fuzz. His daughter had put herself through nursing school, and he said I reminded him of her.

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I needed to try to understand the privilege behind my anger, learning where and how my anger needed to be directed so I would survive. Comparing my experience to

Ehrenreich’s (2001) Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, “waking up” after graduation, I ran for my life to New York City. Away from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania complete with cross burnings and spitting at me from moving cars, I found obvious differences between my Pittsburgh and Ehrenreich (2001). When she needed money or assistance she could step out of her assumed role of undercover data collecting cleaning lady, and return to her university professor and writer’s position and status. She was White, heterosexual, acknowledging her economic stability and social resources she could tap into any time, similar to the woman who’d learned to “let go” of the places she’d left to move to Pittsburgh. Although African American, she was also likely heterosexual, recognizing “a network” of friends she had, waiting for her when she arrived. This was not the case for me. I didn’t assume a role, but rather slowly began to recognize another identity assumed; transitioning from one identity to another, waking up from a construct to face a reality unfamiliar and painful.

Like Ehrenreich (2001) I had some money my mother left me and my brother; a small portion each, nowhere near enough to ease the loss. There were also two mortgages, Pittsburgh rent and expenses, nearly depleting all I had left. As with

Ehrenreich (2001), networks within institutions were most important. I had different networks based on each of my identities, each connected to an institution, but each, particularly as “outsider/other,” often negated the others based on what constructs deemed appropriate. The need for money that three jobs barely supplied, required work from 7am to 10:30pm every day, so I had little time to know few people, and with each

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“incident,” my fear and isolation deepened to the extent that what access I had to the larger networks and institutions (university community, African American community,

LGBT community both of color and White), I’d begun to disassociate myself from.

Sometimes it was in response to rejection; sometimes in preparation for it. Yet disassociation from networks and institutions changed my status as outsider/other in the social systems of race, class, sexuality, gender identity and presentation as much as a substantial drop in income and esteem changed my privilege and positionality. What’s important to note is that my status and privilege meant little as my circumstances changed. With what small bit of autonomy I had left I resisted (Cohen, 2004), but most times I stopped trying.

Socializing with the dominant White LGBT community mostly did not happen.

Ironically they continued segregation along racial lines, and generally White lesbians regarded interracial dating (as communicated in the online community where anonymity allowed freer expression) with “extreme” disapproval. The White queer subculture of the larger LGBT community divided along class lines. The subculture, was more inclusive of gender variant (transgender and gender non-conforming) LGBT people (White and

Black), and tended to be (or presented as) more working class Pittsburgh “hipster” crowd of counter-culture politicos, and they embraced queer. They were similar to young White people in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. For Pittsburgh hipsters, queer meant freedom and activism inclusive of all who didn’t relate to or identify as straight. This could mean men who still dated women but also other men and vice versa, or those who “didn’t like labels.” In the larger White LGBTQ community, most of the “queer” identified women were married or had boyfriends, but didn’t considering sex with women as infidelity, in

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contrast to married and partnered women in the LGBT Black community who seemed to claim no label. Much of this exchange was done online, being discreet was mandatory which led me to believe that all of these women were likely lesbians or bisexual but stigma kept them from “coming out.” Socializing was a challenge, as segregation was strictly adhered to. The hipster events I thought would be different because they claimed to be more inclusive tended to be more White as well. I would also come to find that women in Pittsburgh wouldn’t date me publically, or would not date me as I was not considered female, and interracial dating is unheard of except with the “hipster” kids where there was a sense of exoticism.

Additionally, queer was more closely associated with the formal definition than a political statement about sexuality for LGBT Pittsburghers. Lesbian and queer are not the same thing here. This would be the foundation of socializing in Pittsburgh. White women in Pittsburgh often asked directly, before my name, if I was transgender; the hipsters said little, spent even less time with and seemed uncomfortable around people of color. This translated into a lesbian [gay, bisexual, transgendered and questioning] social circle exclusive to any women who identified as queer, and whose hair wasn’t long enough to fall past her shoulders. Dating was rigid in the heteronormative, closely emulating heterosexual male-female relationships where one member of a couple had to be “the girl” and the other “the boy.”

Traversing multiple locations was necessary to find work, at the intersection of

“otherness” and root shock. Discomfort surrounding my appearance, or perceptions surrounding class often clashed in a “cumulative effect of being excluded, treated unfairly, and undervalued at work as a result of [their] sexual orientation, gender

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identity/expression and/or race.,” (National Black Justice Coalition, Human Rights

Campaign, Freedom to Work, Center for American Progress, & Movement Advancement

Project, 2013, p.35). Efforts to lodge complaints were met with disbelief or silence, and understanding what would result I endured what was necessary, waiting for something better. Ironically, of all the places where I worked, Rite Aid became the most comfortable. The prime example of structural violence became my community.

From stocking shelves at Rite Rid Pharmacy to adjunct English instructor at the

Community College of Allegheny County, I endured abject isolation, exclusion and harassment to academically and personally gain insight into balancing the intellectual

“dance” such that I was able to be successful in my pursuits. My journey has revealed the parallel lived experience of how lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning

(LGBTQ) youth of color conceptualize themselves in predominantly Black educational settings that translate into poor academic performance, and attrition as barriers to a college degree. Confronting structural and cultural barriers to educational access is a risk taking in deviant resistance of cultural constructs of identity.

DISCUSSION

The Need for Exploration & Discovery

Fear is the unspoken expectation of White parents that you as the teacher of their children immediately drop your mandatory afterschool tutoring responsibility to have a conversation with them whenever they choose to show up and for whatever reason. Fear reaches or steps over, under, across or outright in front of you in the line at the grocery store, at restaurant tables, or on elevators feeling no need to say two very easy words; even the biggest of so called “thugs” feel it necessary to say them moving through a

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packed subway car with “baggy jeans”, and know how to use them. “Excuse me.” It’s not a big deal. Is it? It’s just a sign that says “Oakland,” but in Hazelwood, Bed Sty, the

South Bronx, all places where seemingly you don’t have much when you don’t have huge incomes, everything is everything you have left that you cannot afford to lose. Fear is the message shared by new neighbors about “yinz understanding how things are” moving into my new house in the “hip and cool” Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh

Pennsylvania. But fear condones this reasoning, accepts and identifies with it, adding insult to injury.

Unique Identity Development Becomes Unexpected Case Study

I am neither courageous nor bold. On the contrary, I scare rather easily. When I was a kid, movies like The Omen (Bernhard, 1976), battles with demons and the rise of satanic power horrified me with nightmares; my southern family are all avid churchgoers, so when I didn’t listen to my mama, the unspoken consequences had added influence with a “switch” at my Grandmother’s old house. Walking to the train from my office on

Wall Street instilled the same tap into my coffers of street smarts like walking the streets of Bedford Stuyvesant (“do or die Bed Sty”) Brooklyn at four o’clock in the morning on the way home from an evening out with friends. Young women nightclub goers face fear

[of walking alone at night], aware of unknown men on street corners, walking a few steps behind or in front; potentially on the lookout for vulnerabilities, prey. This is after all

New York City. Crime and violence are a reality and New Yorkers learn quickly to live with this fact. But that isn’t the kind of fear I struggled to confront, and later I would learn that I am susceptible anew in such a way that my street smarts alone could not protect me. My lack of courageousness in “facing and struggling against an oppression

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[they have] not yet fully overcome,” (Welch, 2000, p.45) is my “ghetto” mindset in

Daniels’ (2008) expedition of African American stereotypes. My mindset originates in a comfortable middle class existence in New York City, and hard work for people of color who are poverty stricken, underserved, disenfranchised. I’d been asleep in a constructs, and woke up to a reality in Pittsburgh.

Although black people define blackness in different ways, there is always a cultural solidarity based on the structural violence and marginalization of racism. In this respect, again, I am a “sistah” because of similar experience. However, the irony is that to dominant society I am a fascinating and accomplished spectacle as well as an exemplar of diversity who some would suppose had transcended racism as a doctorate student. Yet to traditional African American values, beliefs and much of the community, I am a source of discomfort and shame as a gender non-conforming lesbian. “Blackness” understands that racism is pervasive and cannot be transcended, but it has no concept of the equal damage of such profound exile of its LGBTQ youth.

PERCEPTIONS

Sistah Unhinged

African Americans define what it means to be black in different ways. Yet there is always a cultural solidarity based on racism, and this shared experience of oppression based on race connects black people to one another. In this respect, I am a “sistah”

(Patton & Simmons, 2008). However, despite my cultural allegiances as well as my professional credentials, my sexuality and gender presentation stigmatize me as a deviant in the Black community, and cultural solidarity isn’t enough. Ironically, to dominant society I am a fascinating and accomplished spectacle, yet an exemplar of diversity who has transcended racism as a doctorate student. But to traditional African American

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values, beliefs and much of the community, I am a source of discomfort and shame as a gender non-conforming lesbian. “Blackness” understands that racism is pervasive and cannot be transcended, but it has no concept of its LGBTQ members or the equally profound damage of its exile of LGBTQ youth resulting from the lack of understanding.

Topics, terminology, existence, and experiences which to my community are largely alien, needed more than definition and explanation.

Queer & Brown in Steeltown

In October of 2012, I was interviewed by Queer and Brown in Steeltown to talk about relocating from New York City to Pittsburgh, and the experience of living in

Pittsburgh as a gender non-conforming androgynous African American lesbian. The interviewers, a lesbian couple of color (one is African American and the other Mexican) asked me to share a portrait of relocating from New York City to Pittsburgh, and a discussion began uncovering prevalent themes surrounding intersecting systems of oppression discovered living as queer people of color in Pittsburgh (aka Steeltown).

Fostered tokenism opened the discussion. Most White Pittsburghers (this includes a majority of LGBTQ Whites) had no concept of a space genuinely diverse, unable to actually meet, socialize, befriend and learn about African Americans in their offices, who attended school with their children, neighbors with the same passion as they watched them on the football field. Even those Whites in interracial relationships and families were unable to discern when a space isn’t diverse at all (or why it should be particularly for the children), or how to engage in conversation about the effects on their children and communities. No one thought much about it, therefore, little was discussed. In my jobs working with Pittsburgh kids I saw the results. The racialized bravado, hyper masculinity

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and sexuality of rap songs and videos to them was blackness, and they emulated what they saw and learned from others. For most LGBT Whites presenting as “hip and cool” there was still an unfamiliarity and discomfort that kept them apart from LGBT Blacks except at rallies and protests. Many seemed to genuinely want to learn and discuss issues, but leadership, support, a model of diversity and fear kept them and all others at bay. It becomes easy and comfortable, translating into art festivals and openings where according to the Queer and Brown interviewers, they were often the two creating the diversity at an event. It was also a tokenism often tolerated by many Black Pittsburghers

(this includes a majority of LGBT Blacks in Pittsburgh). Because there are few black and brown queer spaces in Pittsburgh, LGBT Blacks have gotten used to the little that is available; comfortable with being one of 15 faces of color in a crowd of 50 to 100 lesbians at a dance party; unsure of how to change it and few resources to act. Instead

Black LGBT parties and events are few, unknown or almost non-existent. Additionally, tokenism posed “a sistah” as an outsider. My sexuality and gender presentation did not necessarily grant me membership into “my” community. I had higher and at times unrealistic “ontological expectations” of LGBT Black events, gatherings and the community here. It hurt all of us when they weren’t met (Lewis, 2013).

A modern apathy reinforces custom, and interest convergence in poor Black and

White, LGBT and heterosexual, young and old communities, is alive in the most livable city of Pittsburgh. Homes are inexpensive thereby giving lower income families the opportunity to become homeowners, but for many owners on the South Side and in

Lawrenceville new development and increase in property value means increased property taxes amounting to another mortgage payment. In contrast, a decrease in property value

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because of disrepair and debilitation means ongoing loss for others. Owners in

Homewood and Mount Oliver (predominantly White) pay lower taxes (“City

Homeowners Bracing For Tax Reassessments”) communities like Braddock, Hazelwood, and Wilkinsburg (predominantly Black) lose community schools, medical facilities and local businesses in root shock. A community that cannot provide basic amenities to its residents isn’t most livable at all. On the contrary, no one relocates to these communities, instead people who have lived and raised their families in these communities are forced to leave in search of a place more livable than Pittsburgh.

Coming to the end of this experience, I think about a sponge. I absorbed everything I heard from White folks in Pittsburgh, spoken and unspoken. However, only when I faced similar treatment from Blacks did I fully understand what it meant to be

“other.” I sit in the new Black Queer Cool, and I feel all around me my legacy of blackness. Black queer cool is deviant resistance, the legacy of movement that is blackness in action.

Transformative Blackness with Black Queer Studies: Designs for Action & Improvement Research Plans

As networked improvement communities (NIC) of African American educational and faith based leaders, teacher-leaders, pre-service professionals and practitioners, a

“problem-centered” approach to the college preparation for LGBTQ students at predominantly Black secondary schools and access to HBCUs is taken (Bryk, Gomez &

Grunow, 2010). As the complexity of this problem is rooted both in multiple educational systems, and formal and informal settings of the construct of blackness; the work of improvement dissects each system to explore challenges to efficacy, implementing improvement strategies in cycles of “alpha, beta and gamma” improvement trials,” (Bryk,

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Gomez & Grunow, 2010, p.3-4). Successful trials, continued data collection and analysis informs expansion or reduction of cycles in part or whole.

I. IMPROVED AFRICAN AMERICAN LEADERSHIP IN AN ETHIC OF RISK (Welch, 1989)

HBCU Teacher & Leader Training/Certification Additions: As part of the certification process, an LGBTQ element is added to multicultural curriculum to allow for:

a. DIVERSE & WIDER RANGING (HBCU) LEADERSHIP: in search, (LGBT) candidacy factors and options. b. TEACHER, ADMINISTRATION AND PRACTITIONER CERTIFICATION, TRAINING AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: course work for ongoing cultural competency using Black Queer Studies; updates on new information and services for LGBTQ youth of color c. GUIDANCE IN CREATING AND IMPLEMENTING TEACHER/LEADER GAY STRAIGHT ALLIANCES (TGSAS): with LGBTQ identified staff and faculty to answer questions, openly address fears, unknowns, and aversions.

The academic performance and disparity of LGBTQ youth of color is often not specified, or their experiences of education in failing schools are consolidated with that of all students of color or White LGBTQ identified students. “This omission leads to a universalizing of white middle [upper and working class] [LGBTQ] youth experience and identity and contributes to the invisibility of white privilege among white [LGBTQ] youth and allies,” (Griffin & Ouellett, 2010, p.111). Additionally, the lack of documentation and research of the experiences of LGBTQ youth of color is where misconceptions about the identical experience of LGBTQ people and youth of color with

Whites begins. “Although it is important to know how [LGBTQ] youth of color differ in their school-related experiences from [LGBTQ] White youth . . . [analysis] . . . of

[LGBTQ] youth of color [requires] greater detail,” (GLSEN, 2003, p.1).

Problem centered research begins with systematic inquiry into fear. Students explore “dangerous memories” in Black discourse and history: beatings and scars; futile

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attempts to establish personhood; victimhood; poverty; the achievement gap maintaining an “ideology of African American intellectual inferiority,” (Perry, 2013). Investigation into the multiple identities of LGBTQ youth moves students into present day classrooms, teaching and student demographics. Reflexive study should look at how the bodies and identities of LGBTQ Black youth are literally and figuratively marked, targeted, and pathologized in intersectional experiences of oppression. Finally an analysis of how culturally, this translated into heterosexism negating queers17 and queer sexuality in the construct of the African American community (McBride, 2005). In preparation, students learn what replicates oppressive teacher and classroom practices (Generett & Hicks,

2004). This is a campaign for “sharing [black] beliefs about the academic, [linguistic], and socio-cultural strengths, challenges and needs,” (Rodriguez & Polat, 2012, p.2) of

African American children past and present.

The challenge for the HBCU in preparing new teachers will be the deconstruction of single narratives that dominate African American ontology and epistemology, leaving students with only one perspective of being Black. The beauty of “blackness,” more than what is socially constructed, is artifacts, language, symbols and ideas that embodies all that is and can be Black. It’s also the way in which as a culture African Americans recreate, illustrate and interpret themselves in a variety of unique methods. It is “the richness of black contributions” (Willis, 2004, p.34) to everything, including gay and lesbian culture.

17Queer(s) Newly re-appropriated usage in the 1990s to affirm a sociopolitical meaning Wordpress.com (2010, February 1). Retrieved from “Alphabet soup: Labels and empowerment.” Thinking About Now [weblog post] www.Thinkingaboutnow.wordpreess.com/2010/02/01/alphabet-soup-labels-and- empowerment/; note syntactical all appropriately used to literally disparage LGBT identified people in the beginning in the early 1900. [Def 1a-b, 2a-b,]. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster Online, In Merriam-Webster, retrieved March 16, 2013.

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II. IMPROVED CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS (Jogulo, 2010) New Spaces to reframe mindsets, create-hear-share multiple counter- narratives & counter-realities of LGBTQ youth of color.

Create networked improvement communities from networks of power where all are valuable.

a. COMMUNITY CAFES VS. WORLD CAFÉ: Socratic Inquiry in “courageous conversation” space to candidly ask & answer questions, reflect, and discuss what we doing wrong in trying to provide care and service to LGBTQ youth of color that makes them leave spaces and places that are supposed to help them. b. NARRATIVE CHANGES POLICY & AGENCY: Presentations on the reality of many LGBTQ youth of color in our schools, colleges and universities, communities and faith based organizations (by youth themselves) c. BLACK QUEER STUDIES: in LGBT course and curriculum development at HBCUs; interdisciplinary outreach and work, teaching and learning about the LGBTQ African American experience within/as a valuable part of the Black community: Health, BQS, African American studies/Humanities, Social Sciences, education, businesses, and faith based organizations (ACE & AAUP, 2000) d. NIC BASED RESEARCH AND SERVICE PROJECTS: for development of informal community based educational setting (Black churches/faith based organizations), programming and previously established outreach networks for ongoing contact

This analysis of African American institutions is not meant to disparage what has long been the only source of advancement for Black people, but rather facilitate improvement surrounding “individuals or societies of moral and legal obligations to its populaces,” (Welch 1989, p.52). For insight into the problem, discussions and presentations about privilege presenting barriers begins the process of improvement.

With new discourse and new imagined spaces developed into reality, dialogue and how we engage this dialogue must change. As an extension of LGBTQ youth of color leadership development currently in place, conferences, research, social science organizations and other colleges and universities become new classrooms in networked outreach. However, all must first join the conversation, and in agency understand the

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need to be present to build networked improvement communities of practice (Santamaria,

2012; Bryk, Gomez & Grunow, 2010).

Culturally diverse and responsive programming practices, classrooms, lecture and places of faith must anticipate the reality that different cultures of students do not only speak to race or ethnicity. Post-Civil Rights, a new era of opposition presents new barriers to educational equity for students of color, placing LGBTQ youth of color in a particular position of vulnerability of otherness (Lorde, 1984). In 2009, 23 of then 115 historically Black colleges and universities had policies providing for the specific safety and academic support of LGBTQ students on their campuses (Oguntoyinbo, 2009).

Harper and Gasman (2008) highlight Howard University and North Carolina Central as schools taking steps to initiate safe spaces for LGBTQ students on their campuses, and state that “efforts to create student organizations for LGBT students were reportedly met with extreme opposition from administrators,” (Harper & Gasman, 2008, p.344). Winston

Salem State University was also responsive to a proposal for a GSA. But despite speculations surrounding the death of Robert Champion Jr. at Florida A & M University

(FAMU) due not only to ritualistic hazing but also for the discovery that Champion was gay, FAMU still has no “inclusive LGBT policies, programs and practices, nor does it have an institutional commitment to LGBT safety and inclusion,” (Windmeyer, 2012, p.2). This is the tone and example HBCUs are setting for predominantly African

American public schools across the country.

Discussion, research, training and curriculum “does not question or change anyone’s doctrine. It actually utilizes the theology” (Corley, 2012) to call forth followership to rejoin the struggle for equality. Likewise, though understandably a

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source of fear, counter narratives can also be a form of resistance. They liberate unfamiliar and untold stories and contradict knowledge firmly grasped and widely used to justify common misconceptions in the African American community that Black LGBTQ life experience mirrors whites’. Counter narratives are guides for educators and faith based leader-educators to be “open to new ideas, open to questions, and open to curiosities of the students as well as their inhibitions,” (Freire, p.49, 1998). New teachers learn and acquire these skills through success, failure and reflection. A naturalistic approach (Storkerson, 2010) allows African American education professionals and faith based practitioners to struggle through understanding the need for a young person to construct their own identities within a social context. Stokerson (2010) further suggests that:

Naturalistic cognition is a continuous, real-time process of making judgments,

decisions, and actions: figuring out what is going on, and [later] acting to adapt to

it or change it. Naturalistic thinking serves a different purpose from formal

thinking. It interprets situations and resolves uncertainties. (p.10)

In an effort to revive the role and capacity of the Black church in the African

American community particularly in regards to its lack of engagement of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the NAACP and faith based programs like YOUR Blessed Health have begun to encourage and implore the Black church to open courageous conversations surrounding issues traditionally avoided (Singleton & Linton, 2005). The Black church, in discomfort and lack of cultural competency, “[has] expressed their reticence to discuss issues related to HIV prevention such as condom use, homosexuality, and sexual behaviors (e.g., anal, vaginal, and oral sex), and this must be reframed as a matter of

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social justice rather than pathologized as sin to effectively combat this issue to help the community. Blame “is not how the NAACP views it. There are also social issues that affect a person's ability to be able to transmit this disease, and also, in terms of long term access to care - things like poverty, education,” (Corley, 2012). At its first annual Unity

Day, the NAACP released "The Black Church and HIV: The Social Justice Imperative," for clergy to return with parishioners to its roots in political and social activism in a united focus on the plight of HIV/AIDS in the African American community as a social justice issue.

African American cultural institutions, formal and informal learning spaces must become places where images of LGBTQ youth and people, particularly in the social structure of blackness, can be transformed to allow for and encourage “positive reinterpretations,” that begin by talking about sensitive subjects (Sauer, 2012). The spaces we create and claim are where the diversity of individuals and groups (in customs, sexuality, beliefs, culture, etc.) become the basis for interaction and intersection despite difference; becomes instructional, exploratory, improved classrooms (Immergut 2010).

The new space, initially “utopian” (Burney, White & Weems, 2002, p.152), is a representation of blackness newfound, modern and reflexive. With deeper insight into unconventional students, and for scaffolding a rehabilitative course of unlearning stereotypes, biases and fears generations old shadowing these students (Sauer, 2012); “for fresh intellectual air” (2002), a “slash down to the root of the problem” initiates

“conversations [that] can help mitigate some of the conflicts and tensions,” (Lewis, 2012, p.1). What was there before must be cleared away to rebuild:

137

It starts with a machete.

Straight rows are slashed down to the root

of the problem and voices are pulled into circles

where it’s safe to let your heart down, and answer “no”

in the space marked “yes”

space for taking a chance is the only place for changing the ______

(Burney, White & Weems, 2002, p.152)

III. IMPROVED NETWORKS IN NETWORKED IMPROVEMENT COMMUNITIES: Leadership, Family & Community are IMPORTANT

a. EXPANSION OF COLLABORATION INITIATIVES ON AND OFF CAMPUS: HBCUs with LGBTQ youth community service organizations b. COMMUNITY ACTION RESEARCH SERVICE PROJECTS: with LGBTQ youth of community c. EXTENDED MENTORING OF PRE-SERVICE PROFESSIONALS AND YOUTH: in community based research projects with young people & families (Johnson, Gonzalez & Singh, 2014) d. TECHNOLOGY LINKS AND COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY ACCESS TO BLACK QUEER STUDIES: for LGBTQ youth of color to support research, affirmation and connection to other youth in Toronto programs (Peterson, 2013) e. PRE-COLLEGE OFFERINGS AND MENTORING FOR OLDER LGBTQ STUDENTS: *NIC extension of HBCUs to secondary school LGBTQ youth/future students

Most significant to the establishing of networked improvement communities is the dismantling of hierarchies to autonomously yet collectively engage in transformative improvement engaging the strengths and experience of each community (Bryk, Gomez &

Grunow, 2010). “[A] profound shift in the social arrangements” (p.3) of scholarship, serves two purposes:

1. All contributions are valued to ensure collective ownership of each step of the

process

138

2. The “human aspects” (Langley et al., 2009) of resistance to change in networked

improvement communities are anticipated, considered and addressed

Cookson (2011) imagines education for all children and young people as study that embraces the 21st century. As “seminaries of learning,” NICs are project based and people focused (Cookson, 2011). Programming ideas, mentoring and service projects initiates outreach and partnership between secondary schools and HBCUs, forming a joint community of practice modeling for each other inclusion of LGBTQ youth of color.

HBCU teacher education programs need to be a training resource to new and veteran teachers (Graff & Stufft, 2011). Working with the student body on college campuses,

LGBTQ youth of color receiving leadership training and summer enrichment opportunities could also be offered mentoring and tutoring programming from college students. As service projects for pre-service teachers in this component of their certification requirement, visits to secondary schools could be facilitated.

Secondary school administrators, faculty, staff, parents, community and college representatives could work together to implement pre-college programs and recruitment for LGBTQ youth of color. College credit, visits, and seminars for their children should attract parents, students and secondary schools. Internships and training with CBOs and recognition for its offerings to high school students should attract school administrators.

Preparation for the school year the week before schools open could be a time to open discussion of professional development planning to begin collaborative development of interdisciplinary curriculum (Lugg 2003) grounded in critical pedagogy. “Instruction is not politically innocent….but acknowledges the ways in which instruction is capable of promoting justice or reinforcing injustice,” around LGBT issues (Miller & Kirkland,

139

2010, p.xix). During the school year, departmental faculty meetings could be a continuation of professional development to share out and document experiences of lesson material and responses and trouble shoot as necessary; data and experiences may also be shared with parents. Transparency may decrease the numbers of parents who opt out of allowing their kids to participate, and certainly participation of parents and community based organizations with planning anticipates parent resistance. Questions need to be answered and all concerns need to be addressed.

Initially difficult to imagine and put into action, a subsequent revisit to current curriculum for its “crossgendered” value often overlooked, adding supplementary material and subtracting what’s unnecessary for the sake of time and based on measurable success data, is a simple way to begin curriculum reform (Lugg 2003). Many writers, scientists, artists, legal theories, discussions currently already studied and taught in schools today have value that could serve in a new interdisciplinary diversity curriculum; Lorraine Hansberry, Langston Hughes, Allen Ginsberg, James Baldwin,

Shakespeare, Jack Kerouac, queer theory and Black Queer studies, Sociology,

Psychology are only a few possibilities for curriculum reform (Lugg 2003). It could also invite LGBTQ youth to HBCU campuses for access to campus library facilities and collections secondary schools may not have.

Department meetings are also a space where teachers uncomfortable with LGBTQ youth and issues may have the opportunity to share their concerns to dispel misconceptions and falsehoods, so that “sexuality education would become universal as well as inclusive and accurate with a focus on adult roles and responsibilities” (Tenney

1995 as cited by Luggs, 2003, p.120). This training must take an “approach [that] values

140

intersectionality and multidimensionality,” (Hutchinson, 1997 as cited by Lugg, 2003), providing school faculty, administration and staff access to LGBTQ resources on the internet and school libraries, (GLSEN 2003). Urban teachers today must be fully knowledgeable of the vast variety of students and their challenges entering the classroom

(Blackburn & McCready 2003).

Advisory meetings with students present another data collection opportunity as well as a time for students to reflect on the new curriculum and share out in smaller groups. Smaller group activities with newly trained student leaders and larger student run school plans could also be done during this time. Advisory Programs in High School

Restructuring illustrates how school advisories were recognized as another tool with

“emphasis on creating school environments that support the healthy social, as well as academic, development of all students,” (Hochman, Tocci & Allen 2005).

Too often the “citizenry” Cookson (2011) refers to does not speak collectively to all children and youth competing for access to higher education and the privileges and powers that accompany it. There is considerable absence of research and discussion that speaks to the lack of engagement of LGBTQ youth of color in preparation for college and its impact on their higher education access. Courageous conversations must be a permanent fixture in all improvement cycles. The sensitive nature of research and development of innovative course offerings, research opportunities, and culturally responsive yet inclusive secondary school curriculum derived from Black Queer Studies requires cultural network analysis.

The objective isn’t only improvement that is inclusive, but disruptive and reflexive of our own privilege and social justice practices that may demonstrate past

141

conditional and hierarchal educational access for LGBTQ youth of color (Kumashiro,

2001). Additionally, it is significant in a systemic inquiry of longitudinal affects in medical attention, economic, psychosocial, and political voice interconnected and limited to LGBT people in the Black community (Emirbayer & Goodwin, 1994).

142

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